


Unconventional Methods

by Clementive



Category: Naruto
Genre: Action & Romance, Alternate Universe - Bodyguard, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, BAMF Tenten (Naruto), Bodyguard Romance, Engineer Tenten, Europe, F/M, Mild Blood, Mystery, On the Run, Spoiled heiress, Tenten is French, Thriller, Undercover Missions, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2020-03-02 08:06:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 33,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18807109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clementive/pseuds/Clementive
Summary: After the CEO of Wang Technologies receives numerous death threats, he hires Neji Hyuuga, a bodyguard with unconventional methods, to bring his difficult daughter safely home. Bringing the spoiled heiress home is not as simple as Neji first thought; the path to Paris is paved with lies, betrayals and bodies. And the one pulling the strings could very well be his employer.





	1. Neji Hyuuga

**Author's Note:**

> Not so long ago we were talking about doing NejiTen beach reads on the NejiTen discord server. We made a list of fluffy themes that one would read on the beach. Bodyguard!AU came up. And what I read on the beach? Mystery books. So here: inspired by all the books I have read which stated in their summary that "nothing is as it seems".
> 
> Tenten is French in this because I say so.
> 
> Enjoy! :)

Neji Hyuuga  
_Paris, France_

 

The mansion was hollow, haunted, erected on marble pillars and impenetrable emptiness.

Framed in carved gold and painted pin, generations of the Wang family surveyed the hallway with austere expressions. The Wang family had immigrated to France in the late nineteenth century and established an empire that contributed to the electrification of big French cities like Paris. A century later, the family’s legacy included corporations that specialized in microchips and drones, and still sought the engineering of the future.

‘But they live in the past,’ Neji couldn’t help thinking as the maid led him through narrowed hallways illuminated by crystal chandeliers, his steps muffled by Turkish carpets.

Soft light painted tall blobs of intrusive shadows, when they finally reached the living room. If the room was still elegant, its atmosphere was faded, worn to its last threads, drawn curtains before heavy sunlight.

Neji bowed stiffly before the middle-aged man sitting on the leather sofa. Head rolling back slightly, Mr Wang gestured toward the sofa facing him with a bony hand.

"Please, sit, Mr Hyuuga," his cracked lips closed again over his thin voice, and Neji obeyed.

Shifting uneasily on the sofa, Neji’s gaze glided over the chimney, the adorned marble carving it, and the nail on the wall where a portrait had been.

Deserted, abandoned.

The back of his neck prickled.

"My daughter is difficult," Mr Wang said carefully after a while, and he glanced behind him at his bodyguards.

Neji scrutinized him with pale eyes, calculating and detached. Mr Wang was tensed and reluctant, shifting in his seat as a maid poured tea in a porcelain cup in front of him. He was a tall nervous man who fumbled with his glasses, and paused between each word, as if weighing them carefully.

Neji’s gaze, then, trailed on the two men guarding the door of the living room. He could barely make out three weapons on each of them, and they rotated between door and windows seamlessly. Professionals, army-trained. Like him.

Mr Wang thanked the maid under his breath, and he added sugar to his tea, his spoon clicking unpleasantly against the porcelain. Neji looked at his own fuming cup and didn’t move.

"I’ve asked her to come home... Begged her, even, considering the situation," Mr Wang took off his glasses, pinched the bridge of his nose, before shaking his head slowly and pushing his glasses up his nose once more. "She was in vacations in Italy with friends, you see? She refused to come home. Children rarely realize how parents worry, don’t you think so, Mr Hyuuga?"

"Yes," Neji replied and Mr Wang nodded stiffly to himself.

Neji always told his clients what they wanted to hear as a rule. He found they were more willing to forgo his unconventional methods that way. He glanced at the letters scattered across the coffee table, and pointed at them.

"May I?"

"Oh, yes, of course, I apologize. I keep... worrying. The first threat, I dismissed, but now there are ten of them," Mr Wang designated the pile vaguely before leaning back in the sofa, his frail body half-broken against the brown leather.

Neji leafed through the letters carefully. The words were typed, the A4 paper, commercial, cold. Yet, the content bled with something personal and vicious, describing habits, little details, of Mr Wang and Miss Wang’s lives that made the threats tangible. His jaw clenching, Neji looked up at Mr Wang, but he was turned toward the draped windows, the fingers of his right hand nervously pulling at the seams of the armrest.

"I need you to bring her back, where she can be safe," he said with an extinct voice and his lips barely moved. "You’ve read it, they know she’s in Italy."

Neji replaced the pile of letters on the table. There was nothing else he could learn from them.

"I’m trained to take care of difficult clients, sir," Neji said and linked his hands in front of him. "I always keep them safe. I’ll bring your daughter safely home."

"Yes, yes, I’ve heard your reputation, Mr Hyuuga," Mr Wang said and waved him off impatiently. "However, you’re not the first to try... Many bodyguards have met their match in my daughter. She’s smart, too smart for her own good, and she doesn’t want to come home. The girl thinks the threats are bogus."

"I assure you if I give me a detailed report of everything she has done to escape her past bodyguards, I’ll bring your daughter back to you in one piece minus a few inconvenience on her part," Neji said smoothly, and he reached for the cup in front of him.

He tasted the tea, following out the corner of his eyes the other two bodyguards’ movements. A muscle in his jaw twitched, goosebumps spreading uneasily across his arms. He lowered his cup again, ignoring Mr Wang’s blanching face.

"What kind of inconvenience?" He stuttered, and his French accent pierced through the words, more pronounced.

"Slight discomfort," Neji replied, and he stood up, buttoning his suit once more.

Mr Wang blinked rapidly and stood up too, in spite of himself. Neji knew he was now in charge.

"Nothing too drastic?"

Neji gave him a closed mouth smile, before bowing deeply and walking out of the living room.

When he walked toward his car across the entrance, gravel screeched and rolled under his shoes. Feeling he was being watched, Neji looked back toward the mansion at the top of the hill. The curtains of the window of the living room quivered, released once more, and the shadow of a man faded in the folds of the fabric. Like a ghost.

Shaking his head, Neji climbed in his car and drove away without a glance back, but he couldn't help but feel something, someone was still watching him, something harassing and dark. Cruel. As if he now carried some of the house emptiness inside him.

 

* * *

 

_Trieste, Italy, **2 days later**_

 

The hot air suffocated him, stagnant, merciless, as he stepped out of the taxi.

In his linen clothes, and sunglasses, Neji blended in with the other tourists. He calmly walked down the street, paying attention to roofs and hidden alleys, gleaming steel under the blazing sun. He crossed the streets, shadowing a couple that spoke animatedly in Italian. Then, he turned sharply, away from the flaking dust of the road, and followed other tourists into a pedestrian street.

Neji almost groaned. He was now certain that she was hiding from her father’s reach.

She had chosen a city without an airport, in the middle of the mountains, near the border of Slovenia. The street was any bodyguard’s worst nightmare; busy, sinuous, narrowed alleys cutting through the main road at odd angles. The stones of the buildings gleamed under the sun, golden, too bright for contrasts.

Neji wiped at his glistening face, turning on himself, as if in awe in front of the carved stones, and eroded statues. His hair stuck to his temples, his neck, sweat pouring down his back, and the sky was bright blue, devoid of clouds, at once luminous and scorching. He glanced down at the tourist guide he opened as he watched out of the corner of his eyes the large windows of the café where she was supposed to be.

He couldn’t see her.

Neji waited.

He folded his guide back in his bag, glancing at his watch with the same movement before turning to look at the faded fresco painted on the side of a building. Cameras flashed around him. Tourists spoke a variety of languages around him. They swarmed the street heading toward the Piazza Unità d'Italia, and he tried to follow their movements, waiting for a chance to enter the café undetected.

Finally, a group of young adults brushed by him, and Neji stepped in the café with them, half-hidden. He almost hissed at the harsh cool air of the A/C. There were screens over the bar displaying a soccer match, and the sounds of dishes shrilled, swallowed by the cries of those watching the match at the bar. Neji walked deeper into the big room, and brushed carefully by full tables, the odour of coffee strong and acrid around him.

At the farthest corner, there was a brunette, alone, reading a thick French book. Carelessly, her hand toyed with her half-empty cup, her rings clicking against the porcelain. She turned the page, and she looked up at the same time, startling him, her eyes smoky grey and piercing.

"What do you want, you creep?" she growled in English, her accent less pronounced than her father’s.

He cursed inwardly. He had thought he would watch her for a while before approaching her.

"Are you Miss Wang?" He cleared his throat.

"Nope, but she told me to give you this."

She handed him an envelope with an impatient movement and her bracelets clinked, while her other hand still holding her book open. Neji sighed and took the envelope, twisting it, turning it between his fingers. He didn’t move. His gaze never left her, her forced languor as she ignored him and pretended to read on.

She was good, but he was unconventional.

"Where did she go?"

He took a deliberate step between her and the exit, close and far enough from her to maneuver easily if she was difficult.

She glanced up at him, her expression darkening, as she propped her chin on her palm, openly scrutinizing him.

"How would I know? Maybe it says something in that envelope," she answered sweetly.

"Hn. Do you have the time?"

She turned her wrist to glance at her wristband, and he grabbed it. She gasped, cursing loudly in French, when his grip pulled her out of her chair. Swiftly, he slapped handcuffs on her, pushing her torso on the table. Her coffee cup quivered in the saucer and the spoon fell off the table, a metallic crash that brought silence and startled sounds in the café.

"HEY!"

"It’s alright, I’m a cop," he snapped in Italian flashing a badge at the room. The owner of the café sat back down at the bar, his eyes narrowed, but his hands held up in an appeasing gesture.

"If you’re a cop, I’m Santa Claus," Tenten Wang yelled, her cheek still pressed against the table.

Neji forced her to rise to her feet, undeterred, and bent down to retrieve her handbag and her book.

"Spoken like the thief you are."

"I’m not a thief," Tenten huffed, scandalized, and she turned toward the crowd, but they avoided her gaze.

"Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law..." Neji droned on, and he forced her to walk ahead of him, his hand gripping her arm with measured force.

"HEY! HE’S KIDNAPPING ME!" she yelled, and still no one moved.

He could see how a tight knot formed inside her, icy fingers pressing and pressing, choking her. They wouldn’t help her, was her first, her widened eyes told him. Her cheeks flushed red, and she grew rigid, her eyes shining and her mouth disappearing into a thin line.

Neji pushed her in front of him, disturbed by the change in her, as if she had been waiting for it, dreading it. But she wasn’t resigned, breaking apart, she was holding on the seams of her with voracious grip. Calculating. Waiting.

"She owes me 5 euro for the café," the owner said before they could exit the café, half-barring the door.

Tenten rolled her eyes and mumbled in French that the owner was the thief.

Neji withdrew a bill from his pocket and put it on one of the tables before pushing Tenten on the street. The sun burned hotter, smouldering the stones of the streets, and the breeze from the sea stilled. He walked close to her, and her head shifted in all direction, searching, and she pulled at the cuffs.

"I could pay you-"

"No," Neji interrupted coldly.

"You haven’t even heard my offer."

With a quickening pace, they exited the pedestrian street, and turned on an empty street. Tenten tried to slow down, but his grip tightened around her arm. They walked uphill, Neji’s gaze shifting across the rooftops for a lone shooter. An untraceable car with a diplomatic vignette was parked at the top of the street behind a small church.

"Whatever they are paying you..."

"Nothing at all," Neji interrupted calmly. "I have looked into your finances. There’s nothing to your name, Miss Wang,"

"Do you really speak like that? "Nothing to you name"," Tenten mocked his voice, baritone and masculine, and he pinched his lips, his right eyebrow twitching. "I bet you also say: "I’m with child" or "preposterous"."

"No."

Neji made her lean on the bumper of the black car, one hand on the handcuffs, as he fumbled in his pockets for the car keys. She scratched at her leg, and then look at him smugly.

Behind her, the car beeped and the doors unlocked.

"This thief story... it’s bogus. We can at least just be honest with each other since we’re using handcuffs and all," she smiled, closed-mouth, staring at him with interest. "So, how did you find me?"

"You look a lot like the picture I was given, Miss Wang."

"Oh, fun, you speak like one sentence every hour."

Her elbows shook.

"The handcuffs won’t open with that trick," Neji looked at her placidly, and her fingers trembled around the hair tie, her mouth contorted, her eyes gleaming.

Her elbows shook again and again, her movements turning desperate, until her skin was raw, stinging. She panted.

" _Merde!_ Who are you?"

"Neji Hyuuga, your bodyguard," he answered matter-of-factly and reached past her to open the car door for her. "Now get in the car, Miss Wang, or I get you in rather unpleasantly."

Tenten glared at him, and he stared back, each of them calculating their next move, sizing the other up.

"Fine," Tenten snarled finally, and bent down to sit on the backseat, her eyes still angrily flickering across his face.

Her upper body twisted, and Tenten struggled, cursing under her breath as she shifted to find a comfortable position. The warm metal of the cuffs dug into her wrists however she sat. Impatiently, Neji moved her legs inside, setting her bag and book on her laps before slamming the door shut. She watched as the door locked itself with the shadow of a smile.

He climbed in the driver’s seat, and started adjusting the rearview mirrors.

"You could be more gentle, y’know? Or, am I your first?"

"I assure you, Miss Wang, I came in your father’s employ under the upmost recommendations."

"My father?" Tenten repeated, and her tone faltered, high-pitched.

"Yes."

She blanched.

"Oh."

Slowly, Neji turned back toward her, his eyebrows furrowed.

"What did you do, Miss Wang?" he asked with the calmest voice he could muster, and his knuckles whitened from his grip on the passenger seat’s headrest.

"I scratched my leg."

"Yes?" he snapped.

"While I did that, I may have nuked your tire with a hair stick. They get everywhere, lose them, find them, stick them somewhere... Buy more of them," she shrugged, her head nodding in his direction as if she was pointing at his hair. "Amirite?"

His glaze intensified, cutting, but Tenten merely shrugged again, smiling to herself like a broken doll, fake and propped up by an invisible hand. She turned back toward the window, craning her neck to look at the deflating tire. The way she held herself was controlled, a little too brisk and frigid, and when he caught a glance of her expression on the window, he was reminded of her house; haunted by desolation, inhabited only by ghosts.

Tenten babbled on about hair accessories and Italy, and he kept watching her, frozen, his heart hammering steadily as it used to before battle. He would always recognize that expression as a soldier; it penetrated his memories, it shadowed him, tiny, then booming and persistent in his nightmares.

Terror.

Underneath her smile was sheer terror.


	2. Chapter 2

**Tenten Wang**

_Trieste, Italy_

 

She was terrified.

She desperately needed to buy time, she knew.

The bodyguard opened the car door briskly. He gripped the chains linking her handcuffs, rolling off script, and she panicked. She leaned back from him, but too late. Without ceremony, he pulled her to her feet, his face, an angry mask.

"That hurts, hey!"

"What..." His shoulders tensed up, and, involuntarily, he tugged at the chains again. "What is wrong with you?"

His breathing came fast, uncontrolled, and her insides froze at the prospect of being dragged, tossed around like a rag doll.

"Daddy issues, possibly," Tenten replied lightly with an empty smile, and she thought of nothing but the postcard from Paris.

It was crumbled, buried at the bottom of her bag with no return address, no signature, only the words: ' _It happened._ _Don’t come back to France,_ _and do what we discussed._ _Trust no one._ ' Tenten had read those three sentences so often, the words were ingrained in her brain. Now, with the bodyguard's hands on her, his cold manners, they reeled, amplified, cacophonous.

She watched his Adam's apple quivered, his jaw twitching, as he watched something over her head.

"So... I hope you know how to change a tire."

His head snapped back toward her, his face once more placid despite his flashing eyes.

"Yes, I do," he whispered mostly to himself.

Tenten barely had time to react when Neji unbound her and pulled her across the car in a vicious grip. She yelped and tried to pull at his arm, but he handcuffed her again around a street sign. She gaped. She shook the chains, then glanced back him and his smug expression.

"Hey, what the hell is this?" Tenten hissed.

"Handcuffs. Now, I'll change the tire while you wait."

"While I wait? Are you kidding me?! I'm hooked to this... street sign!"

"You make things difficult for me," Neji replied through clenched teeth as he opened the booth for the spare tire. "I make things uncomfortable for you."

Cursing under her breath, Tenten stared back at the handcuffs in disbelief. She bit her below lip, paling slightly. She had imagined he would be too busy with the tire, and she could run away. How could he be two steps ahead, like with the envelope in the café?

Between them, the car, the street sign glistered, boiling under the heat, the shadows of the buildings sparse at their feet.

"I want to talk to my father," Tenten ordered, thrusting her chin forward, as the handcuffed dug into her skin.

She needed to make sure her father wasn't already dead.

"Hn."

Neji lowered the spare tire next to the deflated one, the corner of his mouth twitching. He sighed, his hands on his hips as he watched her with narrowed eye. Then, he retrieved his phone from his pocket and walked back to her.

‘ _Don’t be stupid, he’s bluffing_ ,’ Tenten chastised herself as Neji dialled her father’s number. Her handcuffs grew heavier, warmer. Her arms stiffly hugging the pole.

She knew her father couldn’t have sent him.

Her father disappeared weeks ago.

Neji pressed his phone to her ear, his lips pinched, and his jaw still twitching with annoyance. Defiantly, Tenten watched the corded muscles of his neck, the cold restraint plastered on his face.

‘ _Now, he’ll say: ‘Oh, your father is probably busy,_ ’ she thought, and she wished her heart wasn’t exploding in her chest. The dialling sound beeped, aggressive, shrilling, on and on, and her smug smile emptied gradually as she waited.

The more she waited, the more her heart severed, her mind reeling with possibilities of escape, her mouth, her nose obstructed by her rising nausea. He was gone. Her father was gone, maybe dead. _Trust no one_. _Trust no one_ , she repeated to herself, her mantra as she stared into his blank eyes.

Then, a sharp click and his voice:

"Did you find her, Mr Hyuuga?"

Her heart stopped.

The seconds ticked by, dragging, locking her knees, and she was numb, gasping soundlessly. She didn’t understand. Did she imagine it? Their last conversation, his disappearance soon after, the threats, his postcard? She tried to speak, her mouth twisted, and shocked, and panic flooded her chest. All those weeks, could she had been wrong? Could she had been home with her father, preparing for their new product’s release?

"Mr Hyuuga, are you there?"

" _Papa_ ," she breathed out and shuddered.

"Tennie, honey! Are you alright?" his voice came in fast staccato French.

"Your bodyguard assaulted me," Tenten said, straightening her back and glared openly at Neji.

His face remained blank, but she didn’t know if it was because he didn’t care or because he didn’t understand French.

"What? Are you hurt?"

"I’m handcuffed to a street sign in the middle of the street," she snapped, her temper rising.

"Please, honey, just come home." It was her father’s voice, but it said the wrong things as if he was reading it off a script. Or was she paranoid? She bit her below lip. It _was_ his voice.

"They are men after you... After me. It’d be safer home."

"Home, where?" she tested him.

"Paris, where else?"

She closed her eyes.

Tenten imagined the scene with cold detachment, her pragmatic mind smouldering her boiling emotions; her father talking on the phone a gun shoved in his stomach. Paris. She felt nothing. She felt everything. Home had never been Paris. Not since her mother's death.

"Fine," she said flatly, and shook her head, reopened her eyes. "But I hate the bodyguard, so how about I come home without him?"

Neji's eyes met hers, but she glanced away immediately, a shudder travelling down her back from the intensity of his stare. 'Maybe he does understand French...' she thought.

On the other line, the pause stretched, uncomfortable, nerve-wrecking, and even if she heard no other voice, she felt the presence of shadowy silent figures shifting, tweaking the conversation, nudging it in the right direction. And in that silence, there was a menacing undertone, the only thing she had never imagined: _We'll kill for your new product_.

"He’s there for your own good," her father said softly.

Her father with his usually booming voice and harsh demands, now speaking softly.

Her father who had blanched and grown terrifying whenever they didn’t appear as they should, the wealthy honourable Wang family, now letting her handcuffed to a street sign in Italy.

Her father who taught her dependence was the worst sin, now telling her to rely on a bodyguard.

Without another word, he hung up.

The bottom of her lip trembling, Tenten delicately moved her head away from the cellphone, and Neji put it back in his pocket. Barely acknowledging her, he circled the car once more. He sat on his heels looking at her hair-stick stabbed in the deflating tire.

She heard the metallic clank as he popped out the disk of the tire.

Tenten watched him as he unscrewed the tire, his muscles rippling underneath his skin, his mouth twisted in a snarl. All the while, her mind reeled. Why the need for the charade of the bodyguard sent by her father? Wouldn’t it be easier to throw her in a car and drive toward Paris? Tenten froze. Her fingers lightly touched the bracelets dangling at her wrists in a nervous gesture.

They didn’t know she had _**it**_.

She was the bargaining chip, the golden goose. Nothing else. Otherwise... Otherwise, they would have taken her with force instead of tricking her.

They would pay. They had messed with the wrong family, the wrong woman.

She felt calmer now.

There were a hundred different ways for her to buy time and lose him in Europe.

"Hey!"

Tenten slid the cuffs up and down against the pole as Neji grunted, wrench and lug nuts grating against each other. He didn't react to her call, only his tensed shoulders noticeable from behind the raised car. She made more noise, rubbing the chains against the pole until the noise resonated shrilly.

"Do you realize you’re exposed?" Neji asked, exasperated, through clenched teeth and he raised a face drenched with sweat toward her. "Stop making noise."

"I’m just wondering, what kind of bodyguard just slaps some handcuffs on with no explanation?" Tenten asked innocently.

"The kind that was told that Tenten Wang was not at the café, Miss Wang," he countered icily and his teeth gritted as he forced another nail of the tire. "You play games, I can play games too."

"Do you know how creepy you looked just standing there?" Tenten sighed dramatically and cocked her head to the side.

Neji removed the last of the nuts, grunting. His hands shook from the effort, blackened and greasy. His eyebrow twitched as she kept making noise, now singing an annoying tune.

"Stop making noise, Miss Wang!"

"Oh?" Tenten rounded her mouth, batting her eyelashes at him. "That includes singing?" she asked in a forced hushing voice.

"Do you know how childish you are?" He shouted and bounced upward, and he froze a little too late, like a badly rehearsed play.

Tenten's eyes trailed down his hand, catching it midway, as it brushed against his side where he had a hidden gun.

Neji winced, breathing deeply through his nose, lowering the wrench back, and Tenten felt alone for the hundredth time since she received the postcard. Alone against an army of shadows who knew something deadly existed somewhere in Paris.

"I apologize. This was unprofessional of me."

Neji shook his head, and sat back down on his heels.

"Hmm, rowdy Neji," Tenten heard herself say even if she was terrified, even if she was trapped in Trieste with a killer. "I could get on board with that. Say, rowdy Neji, could you please free me?"

"Two," he grunted and pulled the slashed tire toward him, until it was freed from the hub.

"What?"

Neji rolled the spare tire toward and replaced it on the hub aligning the bolts, his muscles contracting, spasming, his shirt, now as greasy and dirty as his hands. He hissed, and started screwing back the lug nuts by hand.

"Two bodyguards," he explained stiffly, his hand now on the jack. "Two bodyguards have given you space and untied you during similar situations." The jack screeched and the vehicle lowered back to the ground. "They’ve both lost you."

She looked at him with widened eyes, her smile slipping, forgotten, her mind still.

"Who told you that?" she stammered.

"Your father," Neji grumbled as he screwed the tire back into place with the wrench.

Was it some sort of code from her father, the only words they had let him utter or taken from granted? She never had a bodyguard before. Why would he lie to her, her who would know the truth?

She stared at him.

His face revealed nothing, icy, sweaty, sharp features that aligned perfectly.

Tenten wished she had her tools. She wished he was one of her machines, so she could take him apart, piece by piece, and finally she could understand how, why the engine, greased and unstoppable, was bringing her to Paris.

"Now, you should behave. I'm not like those other bodyguards."

"Ah, I understand now," she said softly, nodding to herself, and her voice bubbled stretched, fake. "You wanted me to know you did your homework. Do you want praise? If you unbind me I can buy you an ice cream or something."

Neji flushed, anger flashing across his face, loud controlled thunder.

He walked toward her.

She had nowhere to recoil.

"Should I gag you, Miss Wang?" Neji asked darkly.

"I don’t think we’re there yet in our relationship," she grimaced and the distance between closed further. "The handcuffs are already a bit much."

"This is a joke to you?" Neji glowered. "Ruining the car, running away from home when men are after ways to hurt your father through you."

"Ah yes, I have heard this joke before... A fake cop and his ego walk into a café. Do you know what happens next?" Tenten said smugly and raised one shoulder, her expression malleable and unforgiving. "A flat tire," she breathed, her lips barely moving, and Neji blinked slowly.

She hadn’t realized how close they were standing until his gaze flickered to her glistering lips. They froze, machines that shouldn’t work together, an error code blaring.

Startled by his clenching fists, her gulping, trembling throat, he took a step back.

Protocol abiding. Professionalism. His bodyguard act. She had already made him forget, forgo it too often.

She would break him, Tenten thought ferociously. Then, she would rescue her father.

"The handcuffs stay on," Neji snapped, his back to her, and he walked back toward the car, on stiffened limbs.

 

* * *

 

**Tenten Wang**

_Central train station, Trieste, Italy_

 

The train gleamed, red and silver, barely shuddering under the weight of passengers stepping in and out.

Tenten watched the engine vibrated faintly, impatiently, the train controllers on the platform, just as idle. The train didn’t hiss, its elongated train not slicing yet through the cooling air of the night, but she knew it could attain 300 km/h.

Neji pushed her slightly ahead, and her head snapped back toward him.

"Are the handcuffs still necessary?" she hissed under her breath.

"Think of it as child safety lock, Miss Wang."

A part of her had wished passengers would stare at her uncomfortable, nudging at each other, animated whispers that would have forced him to remove the handcuffs. However, the stress of travelling possessed them, reducing their eager looks to slight frowns and hurried steps.

"I could yell."

"May I remind you that I have a genuine police officer badge?" his voice had lost the guarded anger of before. Now, it was smooth, elegant.

He probably thought he had won because once they arrived at Milan, they would take the plane and then, she couldn’t escape, suspended in the air. How easy it was for men to believe they could trap her in any machine while she built them. While her hands, her heart were home when she heard the rumbles of metallic pieces gliding, colliding, perfectly in sync.

"I hate smart men," Tenten sighed wistfully, and her eyes shifted, voraciously, across the first wagon boarded by business men and women, and old couples.

There was always an out, a friend of the family, a failing piece in the engine.

"And I like uninspired women’s tricks. They make my job easier."

They boarded the train, his hand securely on her elbow. They pushed through the crowd. Her bag he was holding beat against her, her books and keys digging through her back, with their awkward movements.

Neji opened the door of a compartment, and Tenten growled. An overnight train was always harder to stop.

She sank onto the plush seat and pressed her forehead against the window, turning away from him. She had left France aboard regional train, auto stops, always moving, as if with each passing kilometre, she was erasing herself, flickering out of existence.

"Could we at least open the window?" she asked dully.

"Absolutely not, Miss Wang. Now sit tight."

An announcement about the train’s eminent departure screeched in the speaker above them.

Carefully, Neji sat in front of her, his hands neatly joined, watching her. He always watched her openly, intently, searching, the same way she looked at machines, working out the mechanics. He was an engineer of human parts, fleeting emotions, she realized, and she shuddered, goosebumps running up and down her arms.

"Do you need anything, Miss Wang?" he asked politely.

"I need to go to the bathroom," she held up her handcuffed hands to him.

"It’s the door behind you."

Neji didn’t bat an eye. He didn’t flush with embarrassment or recoil like she had expected him to. Tenten narrowed her eyes at him, shaking her hands ferociously at him, but he didn’t react.

"Can I have my hands freed?" Tenten snapped finally.

"You don’t need your hands to go."

"What about my zipper?"

"You have your fingers for that."

Tenten stood up and leaned forward, towering over him, just as the train started. She stumbled, her body half-pressed against his. She smirked. She knew engines, how they ticked and started, a low rumble, a metallic heartbeat that was more human than she could ever be. His hands held her elbows loosely, the corner of his mouth twitching with annoyance. Her fingers ghosted over his body as she tried to ignore his warmth.

"I don’t think I have ever hated someone so bad," she muttered her face inches from his.

To her surprise, he leaned forward, his hands circling her arms more tightly. The scent of his after-shave, his warmth overwhelmed her, and she froze for a second, his inscrutable pale eyes swallowing her.

"The keys aren’t in my pockets," he whispered flatly.

"I’ll find a way out," she spat and the train jerked, accelerating slowly.

Neji grabbed her wrist, and they glared at each other, uncomfortably close, breathing heavily.

"They aren’t in that pocket either."

With flushed cheeks, Tenten straightened her back, her smile, melting frost and despair. She tried to mask her expression by wrinkling her nose.

"Your underwear, really? How very genteel of you."

"I thought you needed to go," Neji said indifferently, pointing at the door behind her.

"I’m closing that door."

"Hn."

"Locking it even!"

"Hn."

Tenten slammed the door behind her with difficulty, only succeeding at her second try. She flushed when she heard his soft laughter. ' _That bastard..._ ' she thought. She twisted her hands forward, her wrists bent at an unnatural angle to lock it. Huffing, she blew loose strands of hair out of her face.

She had probably five minutes before he forced the door open, she estimated.

There was no window. Nothing sharp or heavy she could use as weapon. As silently as possible, Tenten rummaged through the hidden cupboards used by the cleaning crew. Nothing. She opened the lid of the toilet, cursing under her breath. No direct access to the rails like in older train models.

Slowly, she turned back toward the mirror and the sink. With her elbow, she pressed the button of the tap and watched the water gush in her open palms. She splashed her face and neck, breathing heavily, then she caught a hint of silver. Automatically, her eyes shifted to the sprinkles above her head.

Her hand felt her left pocket and her body contorted, her teeth gritting as she tried to the lighter out of her pockets. With the tip of her fingers, she managed to excavate it from her pocket, but it slipped and thudded to the floor. She froze, half-crouching, but her knees, and head bumped on every surface, the bathroom too narrow. She panted, sweating, her body uncomfortably bent. Her fingers didn't even brush the floor.

Tenten cursed slowly under her breath, straightening her back. She watched the lighter with growing panic.

Neji knocked on the door.

She startled violently, a small yelp crossing her quivering lips.

"I'm busy!"

"Miss Wang, I think you should come out now," his shout was exasperated but also triumphant: ' _I can keep you here,_ ' it taunted her. ' _You're mine._ '

With clenched teeth, Tenten lowered the lid on the toilet. If she could start the sprinkler with chemistry, she would start it manually. Like any machine.

"Miss Wang, this is getting ridiculous!'

"I don’t think it’s the sort of thing you can say to a handcuffed lady. My zipper is giving me a hard time."

Tenten bit her tongue, and pushed herself up on top of the lid. Her eyes shifted across the thin pipe of the sprinkler.

"Don’t you think you are exaggerating, Miss Wang? I’m bringing you back home, not to a scaffold."

' _Oh, you'd like me to think that, wouldn't you?,_ ' Tenten thought angrily. She cocked her head to the side, breathing hard.

"I’m a woman," Tenten said sarcastically, and gripped the sprinkler, her back and shoulders protesting. "Didn't you hear? We, women, like drama. We even invented hysteria and lobbied for it to be a recognized medical condition. We just can't do things quietly. It's in our nature."

She jumped down, and the pipe squeaked loudly, water gurgling, protesting, and she wiggled her body, giving herself more weight, more momentum. Muttering " _com_ _e_ _on, com_ _e_ _on_ " in French under her breath, she watched as the metal bent, but didn’t yield. The alloy contorted inch by inch. She grunted, swinging her body. " _Com_ _e_ _on, com_ _e_ _on._ "

The knocks on the door intensified. He battered it with his open palm, shoulders and knuckles then beating at it.

"Miss Wang! Open the door. _Now_!"

Tenten bit her lip until she tasted blood.

Then, an explosion, chaos, the door splintering and the water cascading from above her head, drenching her in a matter of seconds. She fell down, and stumbled, shocked, dizzy. She looked up, choking on cold water, and there he was, his white shirt plastered to his chest. The door was unhinged and thrown aside.

"Miss Wang," Neji said darkly, his mouth filling with water, as he advanced toward her.

There was no room for her to move.

His fingers dug into her flesh.

The train braked as she had expected.

They tumbled against each other, against the walls, wild limbs fighting each other, slipping, gliding across drenched skin. Tenten kicked him blindly, and he cursed loudly. Her bun slipped, loose strands of hair sticking to her face and neck. She could barely see him, rolling back on all fours on the slippery floor.

Neji grabbed her ankle and pulled her back toward him. She tried to kick him again, but he caught her other leg in a bruising grip. His teeth chattered. Her arms folded painfully under her body brought tears to her eyes.

"You’ve caused way too much trouble. What... What's wrong you?"

Her skin was numb from the freezing water, her body slowing, exhausted.

Neji flipped her back onto her back, and she gasped, his weight crushing her as he held her down. Staring onto his angry face, she recoiled.

Then, she violently headbutted him. Black dots danced in front of her eyes, and his hands loosened around her. Gasping for her air, she crawled away for him. Neji staggered back growling, seemingly dizzy. She kicked him again, aiming at his tibia. Her kick echoed wetly and sharply, and she scrambled to her feet.

Hissing from the pain, Neji fell back away from her.

Tenten shakily propped herself up with her arms using the seat she had occupied previously. She watched him, panting, her mouth agape.

Dazed, grunting, Neji rolled to his side, then collapsed again, his eyes rolling back. Her face dripping with water, she stepped over him, and snatched her bag from her seat. She couldn't leave the postcard behind.

"From Paris with love, you jerk," Tenten panted, dripping, her heart hammering painfully in her chest.

She limped down the corridor, faster and faster, losing herself in the crowd, her hope fleeting, her terror sinking steadily into her flesh, swallowing her heart whole.

A part of her knew she couldn't escape him. Or Paris.


	3. Vienna: Neji

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! I had a bunch of other WIPs to finish including two NejiTen oneshots. Huehuehue.
> 
> BUT this chapter is longer than usual. Enjoy, guys!

**Neji Hyuuga  
** _Central train station, Trieste, Italy_

He would kill her, Neji vowed, that little spoiled brat.

In frustration, he threw back his bloody shirt in the sink to his left. The men's bathroom at the Trieste central train station was deserted, the tiles surrounding him severed, gleaming dully. The locked door rattled once more behind him, but he didn't pay any attention to it. He had locked the door and put a sign in front of it, but people didn't pay attention.

He glanced at his reflection in the mirror, the bruise around his eye and ribcage yellowish under the neon light.

_**He**_  hadn't paid attention, and she had slipped through his fingers.

It was time for unconventional methods.

Neji leaned forward as he applied a thick paste on the cut above his left eye. He hissed in pain, opening the tap roughly with his elbow. After he washed off the rest of the medicine on his fingers. He scrubbed the blood off his shirt, grimacing in pain.

'That spoiled brat,' Neji said repeatedly under his breath.

Violently, he closed the tap and dried his hands on his pants. He reached for his other phone, the one he had used to call her father already discarded.

He dialled a number.

" _Hellooo!_ " Kiba Inuzuka answered nervously, and Neji frowned

"Inuzuka, activate the tracker."

"Yeah, about that... Captain wants to talk to you."

Neji flinched.

" _WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU? USING DEPARTMENT RESOURCES WITHOUT APPROVAL!?_ " Captain Tsunade Senju bellowed in the receiver.

He held the phone in front of him, his eyebrow twitching at the strength of her voice.

"Ma'am..."

" _I TOLD YOU I WANTED NONE OF THAT UNCONVENTIONAL METHODS ANYMORE!_ "

"Ma'am," Neji tried again, his ears reddening.

" _For fuck's sakes, Hyuuga! This is Interpol, not the army. I don't care about your goddamn results. You work the proper channels! Pull something else like that, and I'll strangle you and send you back packing to your uncle._ "

"Ma'am, I need the tracker, she ran away."

" _Oh, she ran away!_ " Captain Tsunade said in a high-pitched voice that made him flinch away from the phone. " _Then,_ it's fine _._ "

"Thank you, ma'am."

" _Th_ _at_ _was sarcasm, Hyuuga._ _God, you're killing me!_ "

"But..."

" _No 'but's_ _,_ " she interrupted sharply. _"_ _I'm sick and tired of this conversation. You fill the form, then you can have your tracker._ "

She hung up.

Neji breathed deeply, pulling his wet shirt over his head. The fabric stuck to his skin, the bruises on his ribcage showing faintly. He scowled.

' _That_ _spoiled brat_ _._ '

He counted to 180 before he called back on Kiba's cellphone.

" _Please don't ask me to go behind the captain's back,_ " Kiba snapped in a hushed tone, the received pressed against his mouth deforming his words. "Not again. Remember Belgium, you asshole?"

"Fill in her stupid form for me," Neji said, ignoring his protests. "Then activate the tracker." He cleared his throat. "Please."

" _Dude,_ " Kiba said impatiently, drawling out the word.

"I'll make it up to you. I just can't wait right now."

" _Alright... but dude, you should learn to work the channels. Honestly._ _You've been working here for a year..._ _You just can't pull stuff like that anymore._ "

"Thanks," Neji said stiffly and hung up.

He started to button up his shirt but his fingers faltered over the hole over his shoulder. Nerves and muscles, dead. Scar tissues had filled in their place, his chest now permanently uneven.

It had been a year, but he couldn't forget it.

* * *

**Neji Hyuuga  
** _Bratislava, Czech Republic_

Tenten Wang didn't exist.

Wikipedia. Facebook. LinkedIn. There was no trace of her anywhere, and Neji couldn't help thinking of the empty nail over the chimney, the missing family painting in the empty mansion.

As Neji waited for her, he moved across the motel room, his fingers brushing, running across polished surface. He felt a voyeur, a ghost, picking up her books, tossing the garbage can when he saw a bottle of hair dye in it.

She was blond now.

He smiled humourlessly.

Neji lowered the garbage back to the floor and moved toward the window. Burnt holes made by cigarettes and yellow stains scattered the cheap fabric of the curtains. He didn't dare move them to get a better view of the street downstairs. His instinct told him she would know if the curtains had moved. They were unnaturally pulled, yet still obscuring half the room. She was smart, precise, pragmatism over instinct.

His glance shifted across the gleaming orange roofs and the grey sky, and Neji wondered how she chose these cities. Through books, he suspected, one finger on a random word, her mind on a persona. Dark haired. Blond haired. Drinking coffee. Exploring museums.

He shook his head.

It didn't matter how she sliced through words, sarcasm and carelessness. It didn't matter how she liked cities of blackened stones and orange roofs with old pavement that twisted and twisted, arteries of old hearts.

It didn't matter.

His job was to bring her to her father. Keep an eye on her. Learn about their new product. Nothing else.

But he thought of the way she had looked at the train, her eyes glinting, seeing through the passengers, reading only the mechanics of the engine. She had followed its veins somehow when she had pulled that pipe.

He closed his eyes briefly, then scanned the crowd again. He needed to focus. He looked for a blond woman, tall, slender neck, probably exposed now. He suspected she had cut her hair, dumping it outside the room. Less conspicuous. More practical.

Neji didn't move from the window, his head leaning on the wall for over thirty minutes when she appeared, sunglasses hiding half her face, blond hair to her chin. He recognized her walk, the way she shifted her weight, bouncing on the ball of her feet like a dancer. He smirked, stepping on the outside of the door, hidden from the entrance.

Moments later, Neji heard the key turned into the keyhole, fast, rattling.

Tenten pushed open the door with her forearms, balancing a paper bag of food in her arms. She closed the door with her foot, never glancing back toward the door.

"You should always look around a room before walking in."

Swiftly, she threw the grocery bag him, gripping her keys in her fists. This time, he was prepared, and avoided the cans and bread that ripped free from the paper bag. Without losing momentum, he tackled by the waist on the bed. She gasped, her breath cut short, her mouth quivering. He handcuffed her again, then zipped her legs together.

" _Putain de merde!_ "

"Language, Miss Wang," he said dully and stood up, the bed screeching, more metal than padding.

Tenten tried to sit up, but couldn't. She glared at him, panting, struggling against the handcuffs, her legs uncomfortably pressed against each other because of the zip wrap ties. He had set them more tightly this time.

Neji straightened his suit jacket, his ribcage throbbing uncomfortably.

"How did you find me? I paid cash!"

"I put a tracker in your bag."

"Of course, you did." She rolled her eyes.

Neji tightened his tie around his neck, then smoothed his suit as he buttoned one button back. Ignoring her and her colourful curses, he readjusted his sleeves, and walked toward the wardrobe.

"Hey! What the hell are you doing?"

Neji let all her hanging clothes fall to the floor. He then proceeded to open her drawers and start dumping its contents back into her bag. He moved methodically, but with a vengeance; his head still pounded, the bruise she had given him now green and yellow. Roughly, he threw all her beauty products and books on top the messy pile of clothes. She shouted half-French half-English insults whenever he touched her things.

"I'm bringing you back to Paris," he said stiffly, then turned back toward her. Her blond eyebrows twitched, her expressing sunken, her nostrils pinched.

"That headbutt is nothing compared to what I'm going to do to you now," she said darkly.

"Now," Neji cleared his throat. "You have two options: One, I drag you back to France unconscious or..."

"Obviously option number 2, I guess," Tenten interrupted him, and she grimaced when she tried to shrug. "They are a bit tight, this time around. Is it because it's your second time? Ohhhh, our second time?" She smirked.

"You haven't heard option number 2," Neji frowned, and his eyebrow twitched.

"Yeah well, unconsciousness really sold it for me," Tenten narrowed her eyes at the zip tie wraps around her legs.

Frowning, Neji watched her. She tried to move one leg and the other followed uncomfortably. He gritted his teeth as she kept testing positions, indistinct and rough movements.

"Why are you being so difficult?"

"It doesn't matter, I said option number 2," Tenten bit her lip, now bending half her body to relieve some of the strain on her tied hands.

"But you're thinking of other ways to lose me, and my patience is wearing extremely thin."

"Then, leave!" she shouted. "I'm not making you stay. There's nothing to my name, right?" Tenten added sarcastically, and her short hair moved sharply.

His mind pulled at her words, snapping, reeling 360 degrees like a panoramic camera.

' _Nothing to my name_ '.

She didn't exist.

The missing painting.

"We could find an arrangement," Neji said carefully, and she rolled her eyes, mumbling insults in French. "What do you want? More freedom? For daddy to accept your low-life boyfriend?"

"We already have an arrangement; you don't drag me back unconscious," Tenten sing-sang.

"Hn."

Neji picked up her purse next to the ripped paper bag.

"Oh, sure, rummage through my purse, why don't you?  _Ouh là_ , what the hell do you think you're doing?" He spilled its content on the floor. "Hey! You can't just throw packed powder on the floor! Makeup is expensive!"

His eyes quickly scanned the content of her purse; a pack of tissues, a book chipped to the corner, hair pins, ties and sticks, and makeup.

"Where's your phone, Miss Wang?" Neji asked quietly, his eyebrows knitted together.

Tenten shrugged, her expression closed.

"I sold it," she replied lightly, her stare too direct, unfaltering.

' _She's lying_ ,' Neji thought.

It didn't make sense. Her father told him she would be with friends. Instead... Instead, she was hiding, paying cash, her phone destroyed somewhere, and she refused to come home to her father. She didn't exist anymore, out of necessity, out of fear.

"Hn."

Neji went through her bag, ignoring her protests, and her acid jokes raising into shouts. She froze when he pulled out a postcard.

"This isn't a threat..." he frowned at her, testing the French words ' _Trust no one_ '. The rest, he couldn't fully understand. "And it was sent weeks ago."

"Before you existed you robot, huh? Or someone plugged you, or whatever."

"What does those two sentences mean, Miss Wang?"

"I'm not a licensed translator," she shrugged, but she avoided his stare.

Neji held the postcard closer to her face, his finger tapping impatiently the words.

"What does it mean?" he pressed through clenched teeth.

Sadness uprooted her features, and they glided, unstable, her mouth trembles, her eyes blinked away tears. She shook her head.

"Hn."

He took out his phone.

She blinked away her tears, her mouth contorted with anger and surprise.

"Are you calling my dad?"

"No, I'm arranging for a safe house."

"How the hell can you have a diplomatic car and a safe house?"

"Hn."

Neji ignored her and reached for his phone in his suit jacket inside pocket.

" _Oh_ _putain_ , you're a cop."

She laughed, hiccuped, shaking her head in disbelief.

"I told you I had a genuine police badge. You didn't listen," Neji replied distractedly, staring at his phone.

He scrolled down the screen and selected a number.

He pressed the phone to his ear and turned away from her, striding toward the bathroom. He closed the door abruptly.

"Hey! What are you, a spy?" Tenten shouted after him.

His palm on the door, he waited for the click then he talked sharply in codes, switching between different languages, then hung up abruptly. His eyebrows knitted together, he massaged his temples. They already had her father.

His phone beeped, the number blocked, and he answered without talking. He held up his phone over the postcard until a green light finished scanning it.

He hung up again, and opened the bathroom door, his face carved in stone.

Neji approached her slowly, the key to her handcuffs out.

"I'm going to free you now," he said quietly.

Tenten watched him warily as he unclasped the handcuffs, and slid them off her wrists. His hands moved to the zip wrap ties, but she swiftly gripped his hands. Startled, he stared at their joined hands, her small quivering icy ones in his, and the handcuffs awkwardly hanging at the tip of his fingers. She could take the handcuffs from him and slap them on him, Neji realized, and yet he didn't move. It was the heaviness she carried, the sudden fragility of her that eviscerated, nailed him into place.

"Why the hell is the police involved?" she asked instead with an exhausted voice.

"Think of me as your bodyguard," he said quietly. "You don't need to know the rest."

Her grip loosened, and Tenten let him go completely, the tip of her fingers grazing his hands. He stood up abruptly, the contact of her skin still branding him, fire and ice.

She didn't seem to notice.

Tenten rubbed at her wrists, staring up at him, her body leaned away from him. She hesitated before sitting up, her eyes never leaving him, apprehensive. She touched her newly cut off hair, expecting more. Expecting less. Appearing unsure of the persona she had chosen for herself, or him. Or both.

She bit her below lip.

"I don't think you have a choice about trusting me," Neji said stiffly and handed her back her bag, careful not to touch her.

With numb fingers, she grabbed the bag and reached inside for the postcard. Her hands trembled as she held it in front of her, her bag slipping from the bed to the floor.

"It says: 'Something happened. Don't come back to France. Trust no one'," she said slowly, the muscles of her jaw jerking.

Her gaze met his, and it didn't falter. She was holding back, he could see it in the slight twist of her lip, her rigid stance.

"Let's go," Neji said coldly, and he picked up her bag and purse.

"Thank you," Tenten said, her voice crumbling, her throat closing in.

He held the door for her, and he was the bodyguard once more, instead of the cynical soldier, the lonely man. He peered through the thinning crowd, evaluating, searching for threats.

Neji guided her to a diplomatic car. He unlocked the car for her, and he put her things in the booth. He paused, and he briefly wondered if he would chase her if she ran. 'Yes, I would,' he thought, but it wasn't with the detachment of the bodyguard. Neji was relived to hear the sound of the passenger door open.

They drove in silence, his shoulders tensed, his back pressed against his seat, unnaturally straight, while she saw slumped in hers.

He laughed softly, abruptly.

"Are those emotions you're feeling?"

"I just can't help thinking, we could have this smooth ride if you had shown me that message yesterday."

Tenten rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Says the man who slapped handcuffs on me the second he met me."

"It was minutes after meeting you."

"Potato, patato."

"It's still potato. Minutes, Miss Wang."

"You can actually converse. Interesting."

Neji cleared his throat, furtively looking sideways at her. His fists clenched tighter around the wheel.

"Miss Wang, your father's voice..."

"It was him," she snapped savagely, and her stare flashed with such violence and anger, he was taken aback. "He's alive."

"There're ways to tamper with a voice," Neji said carefully, he glanced at the rearview mirror trying to catch a glimpse of her reflection.

"It was him," Tenten grunted and glanced out the window, her jaw clenched.

"Very well, Miss Wang."

He hesitated, his fists turning slowly around the wheel.

"I need to know what happened, Miss Wang. You were supposed to be on vacations with friends. Is that correct?"

"Oh geez, you're such a cop. 'Is that correct?'" she rolled her eyes.

'She's buying time,' Neji thought as she ran a slow hand through her shortened hair. What was he missing? His mind replayed the last couple of days; Interpol got a call, Qiang Wang wanted to hire a bodyguard for his troublemaker daughter. Interpol planted him there to get the job, forging references after references. Neji was to bring back Tenten to Paris, and make sure no one tried to exchange her life for the new product.

He cocked his head to the side lost in thought.

She lied about the postcard.

She refused to say whether she was away with friends or not.

"I can't help you if you don't answer me," Neji said finally.

"Yes, it's correct," Tenten said sarcastically.

_Lie._

"In Italy?"

Tenten pinched her lips, then nodded stiffly.

_Lie._

"They knew that much, but hey didn't know in which city you were." Neji nodded, playing along.

She would slip, and then he would know who was truly Tenten Wang.

"I destroyed my SIM-card, and dumped my phone while I was in Sicily."

Surprised, he glanced sideways at her. Her face was turned toward the window, her face obscured by her blond hair and the curve of the neck.

_Truth._

"I see, but before that, you deleted your social media accounts?"

"No, I never had those," she frowned and wrinkled her nose, throwing her head back against the headrest. "My father was always hounded down by journalists... We liked having some privacy."

_Truth._

"I read the letters they sent your father, or... I don't know what those were actually now. They listed things your father and you do."

"Like what?"

"Private details, like your favourite movie, the name of your first dog..."

She froze, but caught herself, forcing her body into the motion of a hand run through her hair. The gesture was meant to be nonchalant, but it stretched uselessly, her long fingers gripping at her locks of hair at its tip.

Her hand dropped back to her thighs.

"I see," she said quietly.

Neji decelerated and changed lanes before they crossed the Austrian border.

"They lied," Tenten said after a while in a sing-song voice.

Neji glanced quickly at her, and she was already staring at him, her chin thrusted out in a challenging pose.

"What?"

"Or they didn't know, whatever. My father never liked the idea of bodyguards. I never had one."

"So... What they told me about how you would react and how you resisted past bodyguards..."

"It was to get you to be a little bit rough with me," Tenten paused to give him a toothy smile. "Maybe you should apologize in handcuffs, Mister Hyuuga."

Neji grunted, his ears turning red, and he shifted in his seat. She still watched him like a hawk, the weight of her stare slicing through him. Like she didn't believe. Like he was the liar between the two of them.

He cleared his throat, still uneasy.

' _She'll try to run again_ ,' he was certain. He needed to win her trust. Somehow.

"I apologize," Neji said softly.

"What no handcuffs?" Tenten sighed with fake disappointment. "We were both manipulated from the start, it seems."

"Yes."

Tenten yawned and stretched her arms above her head, the glint in her eyes still cutting.

"Except, you're also a liar and a cop. So, it's exactly a manipulation triangle: They manipulated you, you manipulated me..."

He bit his tongue before he could ask her where she fitted in all of this. Did she manipulate him or did she manipulate them? Somehow, he already knew.

She had repeatedly lied to him.

He was the bleeding man thrown in the lion's den, and he didn't know who his opponents were.

* * *

**Neji Hyuuga  
** _Vienna_ _,_ _Austria_

One hour later, they reached the suburbs in the outskirts of Vienna. The houses lined up behind dense pine trees, only patches of bright colours piercing through the greenery.

They pulled up in front of a small house of two stories high. Tenten pressed her face against the window, humming under her breath. Neji turned off the engine and looked through the rearview mirror.

"Get out, and wait for me, please, Miss Wang."

Tenten unbuckled her seatbelt, looking at him curiously. Neji ignored her, still looking in the rearview mirror. The street was desert, calm, despite it being late afternoon. The sun hid behind a white sky that didn't fracture.

She got out of the car, and he threw the keys on her seat.

He joined her on the sidewalk afterward, just as a man walking his dog emerged from the end of the street. He whistled.

Tenten frowned, stilling, her grip vicious and shaking over her bag.

"This way, Miss Wang."

Neji pushed her toward another house, just as the man walking his dog opened the driver's door of the car they had left behind. The car drifted away.

"W-what?" Tenten widened her eyes at him.

"Don't worry about it," Neji replied, and he put a hand on her back, pushing her forward. "We shouldn't stay too long out in the open even if the perimeter is secure."

Tenten nodded slowly to herself, letting her be guided by his hand on her back. She glanced back once, her expression guarded.

They entered a house she hadn't noticed before, in the middle of the street. The pines in front of it seemed to have been planted meticulously, cutting off the house from both the road and its neighbours. The windows were tinted, reflecting nothing, revealing nothing.

Neji felt her shudder.

Safe houses were inescapable, impregnable cages.

Neji entered the safe house first, and she trailed slowly behind him. He watched her out the corner of his eyes as her sharp gaze shifted across the impersonal living room and the small kitchen.

His phone rang, and he held it out to her, giving her an encouraging nod.

"My superior officer wants to talk to you."

Tenten hesitated, her fingers curling, hovering above the phone. Finally, she grasped it and pressed it to her ear.

"Hello," Tenten said coldly.

Neji moved to grab her bags, and she tensed, briefly removing the phone from her ear. He climbed up the stairs, her stare still on him. Once he reached the second floor, he put in his ear piece.

" _The line is secured._ _There's no need to hesitate, Miss Wang_ ," Captain Tsunade Senju said in a cajoling tone.

Neji smirked.

"Alright," Tenten mumbled and she sighed. "It has been a long day. Just tell me what you want."

" _I apologize for the deception, Miss Wang, but we had received information about potential harm to yourself_ _, and your father_ _. Your father provided us with an opportunity_ _to monitor the situation up close_ _when he requested a bodyguard._ "

Neji moved her bags to the biggest bedroom, letting her hear him with move. He then proceeded to the bathroom, making a show of shutting the door.

"What do you want?" Tenten repeated sharply.

" _We can't share this information with you. Please, stay put and we'll sort this out._ "

"What about my father?" Tenten asked thinly after a heavy silence.

" _It's our intention of bringing him back safe and sound._ "

Neji opened the bathroom's door. He took out his ear piece and went down the stairs. She looked up at him, her face still guarded. Emotionless, he walked to the kitchen. He raised a glass to her, and she nodded once, watching his movements carefully as he poured two glasses of water.

"Is that all?" she said in the phone.

Tenten rolled her eyes and stood up, holding out the phone for him.

"It's for you," she said with disinterest. "The bathroom is upstairs?"

"Yes, second door on your right. I put your bags in the adjourning room."

"Thanks."

Neji watched Tenten as she climbed up the stairs, her back slightly slouched, her lips pinched, and he couldn't help but think she was pretending to be tired. Or disinterested. Or reassured. The truth lied in her overly arched eyebrows, her hands too still back her side, and the way she had hung her head while talking to Captain Senju. She was holding back. She was angry.

She was a ticking bomb.

Their glances met briefly before she disappeared upstairs, and his insides jostled, ice crawling beneath his skin.

Neji put the phone to his ear.

"Hyuuga."

" _What's the situation?_ " Tsunade asked, agitated.

"As described."

" _You can use all the unconventional methods in your goddamn head, I don't care, but that kid is not trustworthy, and you can't lose her_ _again_ _._ _Keep her nice and content. Understood?_ "

"Yes, ma'am."

" _That postcard you sent us... Did she explain what her father meant by: "Do as discussed"?_ "

He closed his eyes, briefly. As he had suspected, she had lied to him.

"No, ma'am."

Tsunade groaned.

" _You think she's the one who wanted to sell that drone to_ _the mob_ _?_ " she asked after her moment.

Neji hesitated.

"I don't know, ma'am," he answered honestly.

" _Alright then. Keep me posted._ "

He put his phone back in his pocket.

Neji rummaged through the filled refrigerator taking out wrapped sandwiches and two apples. He set them on the counter just as she reached the first floor. She slowed, her eyebrows furrowed.

She glanced out the window, her hand patting the handrail.

She shook her head, and made her way back toward him.

"Do you guys have a safe house in every country?" Tenten asked and leaned on the counter.

"If I answer that, I'll have to kill you," Neji smirked up at her.

"Grim-grim cop humour." Tenten took a sip from her glass of water, and pointed at the sandwich. "Would it be terribly French of me to say that this bread is unacceptable?"

Neji wondered how she did it, slipping in and out of her moods so effortlessly. She laced her fingers under her chin, grinning at him.

"It's not meant to be a baguette, Miss Wang."

"Only a baguette is meant to be a baguette," she replied, her fingers playing on the counter as her eyes shifted between the two sandwiches. "Which one do you want?"

"They're the same."

She wrinkled her nose, glancing up at him briefly. Limply, she grabbed one.

"No escaping it, then," Tenten sighed wistfully and unwrapped the sandwich.

Tenten bit into it, munching slowly.

He noticed how she avoided the window, how she folded herself onto the counter, into the smallest possible target.

_'_ _Somehow, s_ _he_ _i_ _s used to this_ _'_ , he understood. ' _She knows what to do._ '

So much of her was hidden and pretence, and arrogance and elegance. And he was drawn to each parcel of her, gulping at each slip-ups, waiting for them ruefully. His life was a continuity of people to protect and erase from his life.

"You were military, weren't you?" Tenten asked surprising him.

Neji tensed. They watched each other closely. They played against each other. They didn't know what they wanted from each other.

He glanced away.

"Yes."

"Couldn't follow the rules?"

Truth or lie? he mused briefly. He grabbed his own sandwich off the counter, feeling her stare on him. She feigned disinterest, but her eyes betrayed her. He was more trained than her in the art of pretending. He gave away nothing. He had joined the army the way he had left it: with ghosts and death, but without regrets.

A mix of truth and lies then.

"No, I followed them too well. I killed more than I saved, so I changed career. Now, I saved and only hurt if I must." He looked at her, as she smiled at him, her shoulders relaxed for once. "I can protect you." he added.

"Well, I don't like rules," she winced. "Don't take the train episode personally, Mr Hyuuga."

Tenten leaned over the counter, pointing at his face.

"Does it hurt?" she asked softly.

Neji tensed expecting her to reach up and touch his face. Wildly, he imagined using various holds on her if she did. He imagined hurting her even if he had told her he would protect her.

Dry-mouthed, he shook his head.

"Oh, don't look at me like that!" Tenten held up her hands, laughing nervously. "I'm sorry, okay?"

"Hn," he groaned, still not trusting his voice.

"Is that what you call a 'death stare'?"

Neji's lips curled up, and he took a first bite from his sandwich.

"In French, we say something like 'shooting you with a stare'. And we mean it as an execution style. French is very explicit and creative compared to English. And, well, I guess we like executions. That's why we invented the guillotine."

Tenten wiped her crumbs from the counter, still munching, and she rubbed her hands over the garbage can. She opened the tap to watch her hands.

He glanced at her profile.

The blond hair softened her features, brightening shadows, exposing her slender neck.

She closed the tap, shaking off droplets of water above the sink.

"I thought French was supposed to be a..." Neji hesitated, handing her a cloth to dry her hands. "a passionate language?"

Tenten bobbed her head, taking the cloth from him, and they were close again. Neji leaned back against the counter, trying to create space between them, but she took another step toward him, the bracelets clicking with each movement of her hands.

She held up the cloth in front of him, her rings catching the white sunlight.

"It's just that French understands passion as much more than romance."

"I see," he said tightly, and took back the cloth from her.

She held it back for a second.

The air shifted, oppressive and crackling between them.

Involuntarily, they leaned toward each other, then frozen. Neji cleared his throat, and put the dish cloth back on its hanger. Tenten ran a hand through her hair, grinning uneasily.

"So..." her gaze shifted around the kitchen, avoiding him. "We wait until when?"

"I can't answer that."

"This sounds boring," Tenten looked up at him, smirking, and he could still feel her persisting warmth, the weight of her. Now, there was a before and an after the train.

Hurting and protecting were two sides of the same coin, he knew.

Neji shifted his body out of her proximity.

He needed to know who Tenten Wang was.

"Miss Wang?" he tried, and cocked his head to the side. All pretence. All lies.

"Hmm?"

"The portrait above the fireplace in your house..."

Tenten stilled, her grin faltering.

"What about it?"

"Nothing, I just thought it was a nice family portrait."

"My dad thought so too," she said, but her words were carefully weight, slow, yet cheerful. Rehearsed. "My mom commissioned it years ago. Before she died."

'She knows it's missing,' he thought, and gave her an apologetic smile.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know," Neji said softly.

"It has been a while, don't worry," she waved him off, her fingers touching her bracelets as he had seen her do so many times now.

He didn't know what it meant. A missing CEO. A missing portrait. A heiress on the run. 'Do as discussed'.

She stood up slowly, her back a little too straight, her posture a little too formal.

"I'm exhausted," she said with a wan smile. "I'll go up and shower, and then nap until tomorrow. Goodnight, Mr Hyuuga."

"Goodnight, Miss Wang."

Tenten hesitated before turning back toward him.

"Tenten, please," she said breathlessly.

He nodded at her.

"Then, call me Neji."

* * *

**Neji Hyuuga  
** _Vienna_ _,_ _Austria_

Neji didn't sleep.

He watched over her.

He watched  _her_.

' _Well, I don't like rules_ _,_ ' Tenten had said playful, and her voice compulsively circled in his mind.

' _You think she's the one who wanted to sell that drone to_ _the mob_ _?_ ' Tsunade whispered back to Tenten's voice.

Mechanically, Neji turned the kettle on, one finger scrolling down the camera feedback. The images flickered in a familiar rhythm, black and white, showing the pines and the road. The kettle shrilled and he unplugged it swiftly. He turned his head toward the staircase, listening carefully for Tenten waking up.

He knew if she were to try running away, it would be at night.

People often imagined the cover of darkness guaranteed an escape, but it was easier to lose someone in a crowd during the day, surrounded by noise and bodies. Darkness offered deserted streets, easily disturbed shadows and a silence that was too fragile to offer any protection.

His finger stilled over the image of the camera on the South wall.

He squinted, his finger shaking, his mind frozen. Dread ate at his heart. He scrolled up and down. The timestamp was a few seconds behind compared to the other screens. Someone was tampering with the feed.

Neji ran up the stairs, his tea, the kettle long forgotten behind him.

He should have let it scream. A siren. A warning. He should have-

He yelled her name at the top of his lungs like they weren't connected to him, breathing on their own. He moved fast, charging his gun, the safety clicking. Gone.

She screamed. Something crashed.

The first gunshot resonated when Neji burst in her room. His splinters biting at his shoulder, he didn't lower his gun, his pants deafening.

He heard silent whines, heavy pants, and someone shifting, wriggling.

There was a pile of bodies on the bed, a bundle of tangled sheets stained. And the stain grew steadily, fast, barely illuminated by the hallway's light.

Neji faltered, his heart pounding, cold fingers prying at his insides.

Her hands stiffened around the body on top of her, and he couldn't tell which limb was whose until he peeled it off, his muscles screeching, his steps slipping in blood. The body thudded wetly onto the floor, and he snapped its neck quickly.

He searched for her in the darkness, her body tossed, clawing at empty space.

He gripped her hand pulling her up.

The gun still smoked in her hand. One of his spares. He recognized its weight, his finger tensely pulling the safety black on. Inwardly, he cursed, wondering when did she take it? He put the gun in the waistband of his pants securing it against his lower back.

She watched him with widened frightened eyes.

"I'm sorry," she muttered, trembling.

"Miss Wang, look at me, don't look at him. Come on, look at me." He held her face, blocking the view of the corpse. "That's it. You look at me now, and you listen. Someone will clean this up, you don't need to worry."

"He's dead," she said through blanched lips, her French accent stronger.

"Yes, I killed him," he said, and he put his suit jacket around her.

Gently, he guided her outside the room.

Tenten startled, holding up a trembling hand in front of her eyes. She was covered in blood.

She started crying silently, and he gripped the back of her neck pulling her to him. Her nails dug into his skin, her crying growing louder, her mouth choking over words he couldn't understand.

"It's over now."

" _You're the worst lia_ _r_ ," Tenten muttered in French.

"Tenten, listen to me," his hand angled her face toward his, detaching her from his chest. "I'll do a check of the house, then we'll go, alright?"

She closed her eyes, still trembling, against the wall.

"Alright?" he repeated, and he gripped her chin more firmly.

Her skin was moist, cold, drips of blood covering her cheeks and neck. He wiped at the blood with his thumb. She nodded, pushed back against his hand.

"Alright," she mumbled through dead lips, her gaze empty.

He ran downstairs.

His phone was still next to the kettle. He snatched it, hurriedly dialling the number of his Interpol cell.

" _Ah, Hyuuga, was the transport successful?_ "

Time slowed, brushing by him.

"What transport?" he asked dully.

" _You requested a transport._ _And b_ _y filling a form, for once,_ " Captain Senju said, her voice drenched by sarcasm. " _Where are you now?_ "

"I don't like rules," Neji muttered, and his head turned aback toward the stairs.

" _What?_ "

He lowered the cellphone back to the counter. Captain Senju's voice increased in volume, her words buzzed together.

" _What's going on, Hyuuga?_ "

Heavily, Neji climbed up the stairs, his muscles stiffening with each step.

The hallway was empty, his jacket a puddle on the floor where freckles of blood traced where she had stood.

Neji took out his gun again, his head pounding.  _No. No. No. NO!_

"Tenten?" Neji pushed the door open.

"Miss Wang?" he repeated and he gulped with difficulty.

The cadaver had his face turned toward the hallway, his bloodied mouth deformed in a soundless scream.

The curtains flew in softly, the window a gaping hole. The window gleamed dimly on the bed, tainted red, suction pads still attached it.

She was gone.

She was taken.

Neji punched a hole in the wall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe no one picked up on the fact that Neji said to Tenten that he had a genuine police officer badge. :P
> 
> A couple of cultural/linguistic notes:
> 
> 1-The way French curse always makes me uneasy, so I thought I would share a little on that. "Putain" means whore. I don't really see it as the equivalent of 'fuck', since it's thrown around casually all the time. But "putain de merde" - "whore of shit", now that's higher up in terms of vulgarity and is bound to give any granny within 3 feet of you a heart attack. On the same vulgarity level, there's "bordel de merde", which means, "brothel of shit". In case, you haven't noticed the recurring theme here; The French swear like sailors who haven't ever met a real woman, and it's canon. To understand this fully, I recommend listening to "Amsterdam" by Jacques Brel.
> 
> 2-When Tenten was talking about "shooting you with a stare", it's the expression: "fusiller du regard." Fusiller means to shoot someone execution style, usually a line of soldiers shooting a line of war prisoners. One could also say, giving someone "a black stare" (regard noir) for death stare, but fusiller amuses me a lot more.
> 
> Have a great NTmonth, you guys! All the love!
> 
> Please, take the time to comment! ^_^


	4. Vienna & Paris: Tenten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter is non-linear, because it's time for reveals. Muhahahaha!
> 
> This is in Tenten's POV.
> 
> Enjoy! :)

_8 hours earlier..._  
**Tenten Wang  
** _Vienna, Austria_

"Yes, ma'am," Tenten heard Neji said from downstairs.

While her back still tensed with Captain Tsunade Senju's carefully polite voice, the sound of Neji's brief sharp answers faded.

Tenten locked the bathroom door behind her, momentarily leaning back against it.

She hung by threads; she had so little left of herself in a strange land of twisted machinations.

And she was inhabited by words she couldn't get back, double-edge weapons, lies which echoes were too close to the truth.

" _What about my father?_ " she had asked Captain Senju. Had her question been too icy? Her tone not right, rough, impatient? Had she snapped the question? Tenten couldn't remember.

She touched her damp forehead, shaking her head, her thoughts.

She needed to focus.

Tenten looked around her, feeling claustrophobic, and her eyes drifted wildly toward the bathroom window. The mechanism was simple; it only allowed a minimal opening of the window. If she had a pen, she could easily pry it out and escape.

But to where?

Shakily, Tenten touched her throat, her hand, cold and moist.

No, she needed to stick to her plan.

The bathroom was white, impersonal, unused, the shower's curtains still displaying deep folds. Two sets of toiletries rest on the vanity with small bottles of shampoo and body wash fanned out behind them.

Drained, sighing, the back of her neck itching, Tenten carefully approached the sink cabinet.

She startled, her hands freezing over the tap.

Tenten lifted her hand to touch her blond hair, a stranger mirroring the gesture in her reflection.

Her fingers grazed her nape, her breaths growing shallower.

It had clicked in her head, the final pieces of the puzzle; the wrong details, a dog she never had. She never had bodyguards, but men had tried to follow her. She had lost them across Paris, across Europe. She should have seen it earlier.

After all, didn't she fabricate those lies herself? Didn't she feed them to men following her for months after her mother died? Why couldn't she still be the girl with a plan who had dyed her hair blond? Hadn't she prepared for this?

Yes.

No.

Tenten dropped her head, her fingers curling around the sink.

Why didn't she see it earlier?  _It didn't fit_.

Something built up in her chest.

Something bestial broke loose in her already shattered heart.

Tenten screamed soundlessly, her mouth torn, her chest carved out. She raised her hand to hit the counter, but the blow never landed. She threw punches and kicks at the counter, at the walls, silently, knuckles grazing surfaces.

Her quiet explosion noisily devastated her inside, blood pumping violently to her head, heart hammering her rib cage, muscles clutching the void.

Tenten sank on the floor, a hand gripping the vanity unit. She pressed her other hand to her mouth.

It all came back to the painting hanging over the fireplace, when everything had started.

And Neji knew about it.

Did he have good instincts, or did he know _know_?

Tenten touched her bracelets, one finger spinning them slowly and cold sweat dripped down her back.

No, if he truly knew, she would be interrogated at Interpol now, not kept at arms' length from Paris.

She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand.

Tenten drew in a shuddering breath, her head cocked to the side, her ears straining for the smallest sound. Neji had probably hung up. She estimated she had little time before he came up to check up on her.

She stood up on wobbly legs, her skin flushed, hurting.

She stared into her eyes, still estranged with herself. Her face was red, swollen, her eyes ringed with dark circles that hadn't faded since she took the train from Paris to Taormina-Giardini, Sicily.

Frustrated, Tenten opened the tap. She gathered the water in her palms and splashed her face. Once. Twice. Thrice.

The cold water bit at her face.

She spat it out.

She breathed out slowly, her heartbeat slowing, her back straightening.

Tenten turned toward the hanging towels, and froze. She unfolded them, her mouth twisting. Her fingers grazed, probed the fluffy white cotton.

They were completely dry.

Neji had opened the tap for her benefit, staging noises of him moving upstairs while she spoke with his boss.

"That jerk..." Tenten said through gritted teeth and with venom.

She neatly replaced the towels.

Her heart clutched painfully.

Her eyes stung.

When and where would this game of lies, and controlled gestures and postures end?

She wasn't terrified anymore.

She was furious.

Tenten glanced at herself in the mirror again. She touched the tip of her blond hair. She would stick to the plan.

She was tired of being taken for a fool.

Tenten took out one of her bracelets. Tenten inspected it under the light, the switch was one of the green gem by the clasp. She pressed the tracker, one, twice.

Humming, she clasped the bracelet back on her wrist.

She smiled at the stranger in the mirror.

It was time to end this.

It was time to take back what was hers. Home. Paris.

* * *

_8 months ago…_   
**Tenten Wang  
** _Paris,_ _France_

"It's called home, or something," Deidara shouted from his workshop.

Tenten only grunted in reply. Her head buzzed from the scent of paint and the alcohol.

Her dark dress ruffled, dancing between her legs, as Tenten walked between blocks of white where Deidara's painting hung.

She pressed her glass to her lips to hide her grimace.

She hated them. She hated the blotched colours, the explosions of thickening brushstrokes that outlined misshapen figures or uneven objects.

She hated them all.

She was drunk.

She was mourning.

She hated everything.

The art gallery was desert, her heels were echoes that staggered as she clutched her glass. She threw her head back and downed her Scotch. Half-melt ice cubes clicked against the glass, numbing her lips and gums. She chewed on them noisily.

The painting in front of her was entitled "Explosion In A major key". It was mostly red, with crooked, indistinct shadows. She drank the rest of the ice cubes, bored, her head at once heavy and light.

"Oi, Deidara! Come back here and explain whatever that is," Tenten turned back on her heels, her whole body flushed despite her exposed shoulders and the slit in her dress. She grimaced at her empty glass. "And bring more booze!"

"Shut up! Don't diss my art, huh!" Deidara snapped from his workshop. "I'm almost certain it's there..." he muttered to himself.

Tenten sighed and walked to the next painting. She frowned, cocking her head to the side, as if the blast of colours and thick swirl of brush strokes would make more sense to her in that position.

She smacked her lips together, grunting deep in her chest.

She hated Paris and its artists as fervently as her mother had loved them. She had loved talking about art, funding artists that had caught her eye. She organized evenings, fundraisers, art gallery reveals that made her sigh contently despite her harsh traditional upbringing.

Tenten had hated Paris for most of her life because whenever they were in Paris, it meant she had to share her mother with the whole city. It meant quick kisses that refused smudged lipstick, hugs that turned into a pat of the shoulder.

"Aha!" Deidara cried out and cursed loudly.

Tenten whirled back toward the curtains just as Deidara emerged holding a wide canvas wrapped in a thick black box. He smirked at her.

She sighed dramatically.

"Maman really had peculiar taste, but I swear to god if she ordered a painting that looks like the rest of your collection, I'm not taking it."

"You're the worst bitch there is," Deidara sneered as he brushed by her with the box. "No taste at all, and you're rude. Fuck, I miss your mother. Great bitch, she was."

Deidara walked to his desk, and carefully set the painting on it. He had rolled up his linen shirt, but it was more stained with paint than his forearms. They tensed, they worked and the box' clasps finally snapped stiffly.

He blew his blond hair out of his face.

"You ready?"

Tenten glanced at the bottom of her glass, her jaw clenched. She barely noticed the way his blue eyes glazed over hen she didn't show enthusiasm for his art.

"Usually, people tell me how sweet she was…"

"Fuck that," he groaned, and carefully eased the painting out of its box. "She was a dragon."

"Yeah..." Tenten said half-heartedly.

Her mother died 6 months ago. For the first month, shoes and readjusted suits were delivered to their doorstep, like she would come back. Afterward, things will be delivered sporadically. They would discover half-completed pranks. As if her mother was on hold somewhere, the way she had once be stuck in another country, her flight delayed.

Then, Deidara had called about the painting, and Tenten wished her mother's ghost would finally rest.

She was exhausted.

"Don't get teary eyed, I can't deal with crying women, huh," Deidara said hotly and forced a laugh. "She ordered this years ago. Made me retouched it so many time. She must have cared about you a lot, even if you're rude as hell."

Tenten smiled thinly.

Paris was full of her mother, disjointed unfinished pieces of her that lived on, repurposed, forgotten.

Tenten took a step closer to him, inspecting the painting. She set her glass on the desk.

"That's the painting, huh. She said to call it "the Wang's home"."

The family portrait was painted uneven, the landscape at an odd angle.

Tenten recognized Deidara's thick brutal brushstrokes, but it was different from his other work. There were details in the relief of the paint, doors and windows that differed in thickness depending on whether they were open or closed. He had painted her mother sitting on the bench next to the oak tree, her grandparents only visible profiles in the living room's opened windows. Tenten was reading in the solarium, her hand reaching up for the twin buns at the top of her head in the absent-minded gesture that had made her mother laugh.

"Home..." she said slowly. "But where's papa?"

Deidara shrugged.

"She told me to draw these Wang and I did."

"She had weird taste and even weirder sense of humour," Tenten said softly.

"Yeah, and she brought me the canvas and all. It was almost insulting, but good money is good money."

Tenten's smile vanished as she inspected the painting.

Deidara gripped her arm, his blue eyes ablaze.

"Huh, don't stand too close."

"What? Why?"

His grip, his stare intensified.

"Because art is an explosion, didn't your mother teach you that?"

* * *

_7 hours earlier..._   
**Tenten Wang  
** _Vienna_ _,_ _Austria_

She thought she would explode.

Neji and Tenten stared at each, rigid, and her gulps of breath stabbed the back of her throat with each heartbeat.

The kitchen was stuffy, beams of reddening light trapped in the curtains.

"I'm exhausted," Tenten said with a wan smile, and all of her hurt. "I'll go up and shower, and then nap until tomorrow. Goodnight, Mr Hyuuga."

"Goodnight, Miss Wang."

Tenten hesitated before turning back toward him. His stare met hers unabashed, his posture relaxed unlike hers. It was as if he had expected her to turn back toward him.

"Tenten, please," she said breathlessly.

He nodded.

"Then, call me Neji."

Tenten faltered, a part of her reluctant to leave his side.

He was firm, stiff, unlike her. Grounded.

He had told her to trust him. And she had believed him, but she couldn't. She was too battered, too lonely, too raw of all the scars men had given her.

She had already activated the tracker.

It was too late.

She trusted no one.

Yet, Tenten lingered. Briefly, she pretended she could be protected. It wasn't too late for her, the way it had been for her mother.

A bullet in the head.

A bullet in her side.

Death over blueprints of killer drones.

Tenten gave Neji a forced smile, and turned away.

She went up the stairs, feeling his eyes on her. If he could be trusted, he was smart enough to know she couldn't be.

Tenten was about to enter her room, when she saw his room's door ajar. She glanced back, briefly, her heartbeat quickening, loud, numbing. Silently, she approached his room and she pushed open his door.

His bag was on the bed, open, piles of clothes with earphones resting on top.

Tenten threw one last glance over her shoulder before reaching inside it and feeling around. Her heart pounded louder, as her hand closed around his service gun. She brought it up to eye-level.

The metal gleamed.

Her finger grazed the safety.

Her mother hadn't fired back, but she would.

* * *

_8 months ago…_   
**Tenten Wang  
** _Paris,_ _France_

The painting burst into flames two days after Tenten hung it over the fireplace.

The housekeeper yelped, then screeched, dashing out of the room.

"FIRE! FIRE!" she yelled.

The painting crisped noisily, after a sharp shot, a loud intake of breath before the fire started.

Tenten didn't move immediately. She was detached, lying down on the sofa, her neck uncomfortable, her mind muddled by run-on sentences on quantum physics.

Flames hungrily consumed the portrait, licked it clean, never reaching past the canvas.

She still didn't move.

Was that what she had feared? That all traces of her mother would be gone afterward?

Slowly, Tenten pushed her book aside to look at the fireplace.

She sat up.

Sighing, Tenten reached for the fire extinguisher she kept by the sofa since she hung the painting.

"Is this your last prank?" she muttered as she stood up. "Geez, a bit melodramatic, don't you think?"

Steps pounded, the chandelier above her head clicking angrily.

' _Why do you do this shit?_ ' Tenten yelled inwardly like she once did after another of her mother's pranks.

' _Because it's fun. Don't be melodramatic, Tennie._ _Live a little._ '

Biting her lips, Tenten shot the creamy chemical from the extinguisher at the portrait, smouldering it completely. She huffed. Her hand still gripping the red tank shook, whitened. Tenten grimaced at the gross goo dripping down the wall and gathering on top of the fireplace.

"The woman was insane," Tenten mumbled and closed her eyes.

Somehow, it hurt her more that her mother's laughter lingered, crept in, uninvited, a harassing sound that filled her with numbing thoughts. She wished her mother had died without an echo. She wished her head was full of her own thoughts, not her mother's laughter piercing in, barely unwrapped memories haunting her.

She shook her head and opened her eyes, letting the fire extinguisher dropped to the floor.

She sat back on the sofa and reached for her book. Tenten's eyes caught a hint of drifting white. She raised her head, letting go of the book. Her hand shot up and caught the thick package of folded sheets.

She frowned.

Her family crest was embroidered in the paper.

She looked up where the painting had been.

Now, she understood. Home. The Wang family. Her father left out.

Her palms turned cold.

Her father had been adopted in the Wang family before he married her mother. The Wang family was a powerful influential family, and they couldn't let their name vanish. No. They had bought themselves a male heir, given them their name their fortune, their daughter...

Tenten snorted.

She had forgotten.

Paris wasn't  _her_  home.

Not since her mother died.

Maybe it should have been.

Tenten stared at the blackened canvas still smoking thickly until the edge of her vision crackled, quivered, and all was burned away.

And always her laughter in the shell of her ear.

' _Don't be melodramatic, Tennie._ '

"Miss Wang, are you alright?" the cook cried out as he dashed into the room with his own fire extinguisher. The housekeeper cowered behind him.

Tenten turned with bright smile, hiding the pages behind her.

"Everything is perfectly under control, Mister Akimichi. Thank you."

A larger impossible to dislodge weight settled on her chest.

* * *

_3 hours earlier..._   
**Tenten Wang  
** _Vienna_ _,_ _Austria_

A crushing weight on top of her woke her up. Holding her down, the man's knees dug into her thighs.

Tenten clawed at the bed.

Tangled bed sheets, tangled heartstrings, his hand pressed harder against her mouth. She gagged on the scent of cigarettes and leather. Her teeth gritted as her head as pushed back against the pillow. Her fingers searched the bed sheets.

' _Don't be melodramatic, Tennie._ _'_

_The gun. The gun. Where was it?!_

She touched something, it spun slowly, and she choked for air.

"Don't move," someone whispered darkly.

Was it her? Tenten wondered wildly. She gripped something. She couldn't focus, her chest caved in from lack of oxygen.

"Where are they?" the man hissed and gripped her throat with his other gloved hands. "Where are the plans?"

Tenten released the safety of the gun, her vision blackened. Blindly, she dug it in his gut.

She felt the bullet in her core, a loud snap coming undone, a grunt, and gulp of air that hurt. He crashed. She burned up.

"TENTEN!" Neji yelled downstairs.

"Tenten," another voice hissed urgently.

Tenten stilled, panting, slipping. What was flesh, what were bedsheets, she didn't know. She tasted gunpowder, leather and cigarettes all at once.

He was a crushing weight on top of her. Did she dream that?

Tenten blinked. There was still nothing but darkness.

The door slammed on the wall.

Tenten squinted.

She shuddered, as if she expected to hold her own guts.

The man on top of her slipped off the bed, and his neck snapped loudly. Neji panted, disfigured by anger, loose strands of hair falling in front of his face. She started moving again, bruised, trembling, never breaking their stare.

He reached over her, a towering shadow cut out of the light of the entrance.

"I'm sorry," Tenten muttered shakily.

Neji took the gun from her and gripped her hand to get out of the bed. Her skin felt sticky, slippery, abnormally warm. His hand stiffened around hers.

He inspected the gun, recognized it, and his jaw jerked.

She opened her mouth, but her nape prickled.

For the first time, Neji didn't seem to understand her, weigh her words. He merely nodded, holding her to him. Tenten's eyes flickered to the shadows. The curtains parted briefly. A figure pressed their index to their mouth, the gun gleaming faintly in their other hand.

She stepped away from Neji, but he leaned closer, his back to the figure.

Tenten stumbled faintly on the cadaver, kicking at soft tissues.

Neji steadied her.

"Miss Wang, look at me, don't look at him. Come on, look at me." Neji held her face, blocking the view of the corpse. "That's it. You look at me now, and you listen. Someone will clean this up, you don't need to worry."

"He's dead," she said through blanched lips, her French accent stronger.

She didn't know if she was talking to the figure still hiding or Neji.

"Yes, I killed him," Neji said softly, and he put his suit jacket around her. It was warm, smelling faintly of sharp detergent, the inside of a car, the mellow scent of dish soap.

She stared at his hands flecked by blood. They lingered on her shoulders and the sound of a neck snapped in her head.

Gently, he guided her outside the room.

The light hit her.

Tenten startled, holding up a trembling hand in front of her eyes. She was covered in blood.

Her knees buckled. She started crying silently, and he gripped the back of her neck pulling her to him. Her nails dug into his skin, her crying growing louder, her mouth choking over words he couldn't understand.

"It's over now."

He held her, but she dissolved.

He held her, but he barely touched her; her heart, pounded, an angry fist turned to hatred and revenge. There wasn't room for him.

" _You're the worst lia_ _r_ ," Tenten muttered in French, and it cost her everything.

She meant her father.

* * *

_6 months ago..._  
**Tenten Wang  
** _Paris,_ _France_

He was a good liar, or she was wrong.

Tenten tried to look at her father through the lenses of an engineer.

She tried to look for the defective piece in his face, in his neck, a rotten piece screwed backward.

There was nothing.

Like every morning, the table was covered with a mix of French pastries, and glutinous rice and steamed buns.

Like every morning, her father's face was placid, his mouth blurry lines as he chewed. His squared glasses perched on his nose, he read the newspaper, holding his chopsticks near his mouth. Tenten leaned back against her chair, glancing briefly at the ornate ceiling,

She sighed, and loosely reached for her coffee cup with buttery fingers.

"Can I see maman's will?"

"What?" her father stopped chewing and glanced above his glasses at her.

He blinked, his dull expression sharpening as he processed what she had said. He started chewing again, more slowly, and he folded the newspaper back on the table.

"I'm wondering if I'm missing a couple of millions in my inheritance," Tenten shrugged and reached for a croissant in the centre platter.

Abruptly, her father snapped the newspaper on the table, glaring at her.

"You've already spent it all, haven't you?" he asked in a low voice.

"If I tell you no, are you going to believe me?"

"You spoiled  _spoiled_ brat! I can't believe you! Thank god your mother isn't here to see how you live!" he smacked his lips with disgust, and grunted. "I should have sent you to a Chinese prep school. You'd have been married by now!"

"How do I live exactly, papa?"

"Your tone, young lady," he warned and took off his glass to pinch the bridge of his nose.

She knew most machines had limited processing.

She shot her words without missing a beat:

"Were you ever going to tell me maman was killed?"

"Excuse me?"

She shrugged, never pausing, and her finger rip apart the croissant in her plate.

"So, I'm the spoiled child, and now you play the senile old man?"

Her father banged his fists on the table, and everything clanged brutally.

"TENTEN WANG, WATCH YOUR TONGUE!"

"Why was maman killed? For the drones?"

"How do you-?" he choked, his face reddening.

He cracked, he faltered, and it was enough to see: he was a good liar.

"I'm not hungry anymore," Tenten said abruptly.

She pushed away her plate and stood up. As she passed past his chair, he gripped her arm.

"You listen to me, Tenten," her father panted, enraged. "You stay out of this business, do you hear me? Don't mention the drones to anyone. Or they'll come after you. After me. We've just buried your mother." he shook her arm, his grip tightening. "Use your head for the love of God! Our family has been through enough, so whatever you're doing, you're stopping it right now. Am I clear?"

' _He cared_ ,' she thought, and clung to the relief it provided her. ' _I'm still his daughter._ '

"Yes, perfectly clear."

Tenten detached her arm from his hand gently. She smiled. He patted her hand looking relieved.

She waited outside the dinning room, leaning against the wall.

She looked up at the massive chandelier above the staircase.

She knew flawed pieces didn't bounce back into place. They broke apart, and the machinery haltered.

She heard her father grunt.

"Whoever mentioned the drones to my daughter… I want them to be sorry."

The pause broke her heart.

"Hmm. Did you find the plans?"

The second pause ignited the rest of her that wasn't broken, and for the first time since her mother died, she wasn't numb.

"Alright, keep me posted, and clean up this mess my daughter made."

Slowly, she spun her thicker bracelet and the fake gems gleamed. She smiled tentatively. Maybe her home, her mother's company was a small price to pay to keep her father.

Blood was thicker than water after all.

* * *

_2_ _hours earlier..._   
**Tenten Wang  
** _Vienna_ _,_ _Austria_

Tenten had smeared blood on Neji.

Absent-mindedly, she tried to brushed it off, but it smudged, diluted in the white of his shirt, snaking up his arms.

She shuddered.

"Tenten, listen to me," his hand angled her face toward his, detaching her from his chest. "I'll do a check of the house, then we'll go, alright?"

She closed her eyes, still trembling, against the wall.

"Alright?" he repeated, and he gripped her chin more firmly.

Her skin was moist, cold, drips of blood covering her cheeks and neck. He wiped at the blood with his thumb. She nodded, pushed back against his hand.

"Alright," she mumbled through dead lips, her gaze empty.

Neji ran downstairs.

She knocked her head back on the wall, glancing up.

"Let's go," the figure hissed in French from the doorway. "I already cut off the cameras."

The gun clicked, pointing at her feet.

Tenten stood up and leaned heavily against the wall to steady herself.

Something screeched mutely behind her.

The glass of the window ceded under the glass cutter. Without ceremony, the shadow threw it on the mattress.

She pushed back her hair, sternly looking back at her, and offered her gloved hand. Tenten let his jacket fall back on the floor.

"You're late," she muttered.

"No time for that now, bitch," she grinned and her teeth flashed white in the darkness.

They had the same hair, shoulder-length, blond, and the same sharpness, violence to their features.

Tenten gripped her hand.

"Let's go."

She didn't look back.

* * *

_4 months ago..._  
**Tenten Wang  
** _Paris,_ _France_

Tenten tried not to look at the woman directly.

Her rings unpleasantly squeaked on the foot of the wine glass, as Tenten swirled the deep yellow liquid inside. She watched the light catch with the wine, the reflection decor of the restaurant inverted in the glass. Itsactivity had dampened around two o'clock, and it had given Tenten time to watch her.

The woman was slim and sleek, brushing through disguise smoothly, her gait swift and her hands always disappearing behind fabric. She was heart-faced, beautiful, but her face left no impression, constantly shape-shifting, at once angular and soft.

There was no way to tell whether she was really blond or blue-eyed.

Now, the woman reemerged from the restrooms with a waiter uniform, her blouse tucked neatly in her long black skirt.

Tenten leaned back against her seat, and raised her hand. Immediately, the blonde approached her smiling politely, the corner of her blue eyes wrinkling.

"Another glass, ma'am?" She spoke French with a faint Polish accent.

Tenten reached inside her messenger bag and dropped a thick file on the table.

"Who sent you?"

Without looking at her, she took a sip of her wine.

Its fruity favour bit at her tongue. She should have gone for a dry white instead, she pondered, ignoring the flustered look on the waitress' face.

"I don't know what you're talking about, ma'am."

Tenten rolled her eyes, pushed back her glass on the table and roughly opened the file.

"Cut the crap or I'll destroy your life. Your...," Tenten tapped a specific line with her index and whistled low, "three identities will all be exposed. The police will come pick you up like a rip fruit. I wonder if that means they'll charge you with fraud, identity theft— and wow... my favourite!— murder back in Poland."

The waitress blanched, and took a step back. Her face crumbled, the perfect mask, but her pale eyes were sharp and focused drifting across windows and the two exits.

"Don't even think about it," Tenten hissed acidly and showed her the gun under the napkin spread on her laps. She let go of the napkin. "Sit down, Ino Yamanaka or whatever your real name is."

Slowly, the fake waitress sat down, her jaw clenched.

Sneering, they scrutinized each other.

"Are you deaf?" Tenten snapped. "I asked you: who sent you?"

"I can't tell you because I don't know," Ino answered flatly.

Tenten stared at her intently.

The others hadn't known either. She had lost them across France, handcuffed a few to fences and sign stops. She had been followed since she mentioned the drones to her father. And she wanted to believe it was typical bad guys, watching her. Anonymous faces. Clichés.

Her father had already offered to send her away twice.

Tenten took another sip of her wine and grimaced.

"You're the only one I couldn't easily shake off. Ex-KGB?"

Ino didn't answer, half-slouched back against her chair, her eyes narrowing so slightly.

"Whatever they are paying you," Tenten said. "I'll double it. You tell them what I want you to tell them, that's all."

"I could just take your money and keep working for them," Ino said evenly.

"Ah, but you see," Tenten sing-sang and tilted her head, an empty smile etched on her lips. "I know exactly who sent you. What did they promise you? Money and fame? A modelling career? You look like a fucking cliché."

"You're a cold bitch," Ino snapped.

Tenten sighed and put the napkin in a puddle on the table. The gun still inside clicked against the table. Ino tensed.

"I'm an angry bitch," Tenten replied her voice low and tensed with anger. "I'm spiteful and hateful, and I want them to pay. Don't you?"

Ino reached for her glass of wine, and downed it. Tenten raised an eyebrow at her.

"I bet you don't have many friends."

Tenten laughed, her body shaking, deflating, greedy for relationships despite all the scars and the engulfing pain.

She only had her father.

* * *

_Now_  
**Tenten Wang  
** _50 km from Vienna, Austria_

She had no one.

' _Do as discussed._ '

She had been so naïve to believe his story.

"I wanted it to be true so much... I wanted to believe that he was sending me away for my own good. I wanted to believe he was kidnapped," Tenten muttered with numb lips.

She still wore a man's blood.

Ino drove in silence, her frown deepening. Rain splattered and drifted across the windows of the car. Tenten leaned her head back on the headrest, her eyes closed, her lips pinched.

Neji would hate her by now. He must have realized she had fooled him one last time, or he would soon.

She truly had no one.

Tenten laughed.

Then, she cried, hiccupping, her fists buried in her abdomen. She was surprised that there were still things to shed, tears and blood and spit. Months of being hunted and torn between facts, she was surprised there were still pieces of her to be shattered.

Without glancing away from the road, Ino held out a towel and threw a water bottle on her laps.

"Drink," she ordered gently.

Ino cleared her throat and repositioned her hands on the wheels, her back straight.

Tenten opened the water bottle with weak trembling hands. She gulped down the lukewarm water, then splashed her face.

"You were supposed to arrive two days ago in Brastislava," Tenten muttered away the towel still pressed to her face. "What happened?"

"Do you know how many people are after you, bitch?" Ino shot her a quick glance, and violently indicated her left turn. "They all thought you were in China, until a week ago. You came back?"

A week ago was when Neji was recruited by her father to bring her back to Paris.

She closed her eyes.

"I never went," Tenten whispered and shifted in her seat to curl away from Ino, her forehead pressed against the window. "My father said if there ever was trouble, I should go to my great-aunt's, but I didn't."

' _Do as discussed,_ ' his voice taunted in her mind and it clipped, biting at her.

Ino opened her mouth, but clasped it shut immediately. She hesitated, her knuckles turning white around the steering wheel.

Tenten reached inside her coat and took out the creased postcard. In the darkness, the words appeared to be written in smudged ink.

"They know you have the plans," Ino said finally, an edge to her voice. "That's why you were meant to come back."

"I don't have the plans," Tenten said in a tired voice.

"Sure, you don't," Ino said dryly.

Tenten tilted the postcard in her hands, trying to catch a beam of light from the poles by the highway. She wondered if with light she would finally see the lie laced in each word, illuminate the path back to Paris.

Somehow, she still hoped it was a mistake.

Tenten chuckled dryly, each piece of her heart rubbing, screeching against one another.

She ripped the postcard until it she couldn't anymore, her fingers bent but the paper refusing to be rip anymore.

Ino's eyes flickered toward her in the rearview mirror.

"Did you bring my computer?" Tenten asked soberly and brushed off the pieces from her laps.

She was mad. Mad. Mad!

"The bag behind your seat," Ino said quickly, as if relieved to have something practical to say. "I had to kill four men to get it out of your apartment. It's trashed."

"Do I look like someone who's worried about my home decor?"

Tenten pushed herself back and gripped the bag from the back seat. She lay it on her laps and opened it.

"No, you look like me," Ino shot back. She hit the wheel thrice, the sound dampened by her leather gloves.

"Are you sure about this?" Ino asked, part of her sharp, part of her gentle.

' _Maybe we're friends_ ', Tenten thought wildly and she took the computer out of the bag.

"I'll buy a train ticket to Paris from Bratislava. I need one last favour."

"As if I couldn't work this one out," Ino grumbled, but her eyes gleamed like a cat's, violent yet purring.

Tenten smiled sadly.

She was going home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tenten slays, so of course she isn't a damsel in distress. huehuehue
> 
> Maman = mom
> 
> I have been very busy with work hence the delay. I still have the wild wish of finishing this before September, but we'll see. *grins sheepishly*
> 
> Thank you for reading and for the support! :D
> 
> Next chapter will be a mix of Neji and Tenten's POVs, because I live dangerously.


	5. Toward Paris: Tenten & Neji

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two things:
> 
> 1) I had some things going on in my life that prevented me from updating this earlier. I don't feel like getting into details, but here we are.
> 
> 2) There is another chapter and an epilogue, so there are actually two chapters left. Sorry I suck at math... I always misevaluate the number of chapters I'll need to finish a story. -_-' Truly my biggest flaw.
> 
> Enjoy! :D Oh, and happy belated Halloween! ;)

**Neji Hyuuga  
** _Vienna, Austria_

White flashes snapped, bounced off the walls, immortalizing the crime scene. Yellow markers and tape covered the entire house.

The safe house swarmed with activity, tracking remainders of Tenten, technicians and agents stepping heavily on the parquet, in the warm glow of dusk.

They collected evidence, dusting surfaces for prints, searching for footprints in the garden.

Upstairs, Neji gazed around the room, exhausted. The covers were soaked with blood, thrown over the mattress in mounting wrinkles, grazing the floor.

A crime technician brushed by him sealing a plastic bag with matted strands of hair.

_Her hair._

_Her blood._

"Dude..." Kiba said softly and his voice halted. He ran a hand through his hair.

"I need to focus," Neji replied mechanically, the taste of blood flooding his mouth. "Don't talk."

Kiba pinched his lips, both his hands falling to his hips, fingers grazing his gun. He nervously licked his lips, watching Neji.

_The gun._

_Neji's gun, in her hands._

He was missing something.

Neji replayed the previous night relentlessly, retraced it step-by-step, scene-by-scene. He gutted everything reaction; from the way her eyes reflected the light in the hallway to the way she held the gun, both hands on the gleaming metal.

He paused.

In his mind, he watched it again, the moment when he took the gun from her, and her eyes darkened, petrified, insistingly on him. He had attributed the stiffness of her body to shock, but what if he had missed it; the micro-movement of her lips, the contraction of the muscles around her eyes that would explain everything.

He held out his palm, closing one eye.

The side of his palm blurred revealing the wardrobe behind the door.

She had taken the gun to defend herself. Maybe she had known someone was coming.

A shiver ran down his spine, and he lowered his hand. She held the gun with both hands. How could he have been so blind?

He looked at her lips, at her deft hands when she spoke about her language. Why didn't he look at her hands when he took the gun from her.

They didn't shake.

They were as steady as his own around a gun. Around death.

"You look crazy, man," Kiba said slowly from the doorway, observing him with contained impatience. "We've combed the house, the neighbouring houses, their dogs..." he shrugged and gestured over his shoulder. "Captain Senju should have let me bring Akamaru. That dog can follow a trail," he snorted even if his dog was untrained.

Neji ignored Kiba and inclined his head, still looking past where he had stood the previous night. Tenten faced the black curtains partially hiding the wardrobe, but she avoided looking there.

He frowned.

"She wasn't alone," Neji breathed out, and Kiba rolled his eyes, sighing.

"You and your mumbo-jumbo..." he grunted. "I swear. Did you learn that in the military?"

Neji walked past Kiba and pushed the curtains aside with his gloved hands. His eyes swiftly scanned the floor.

"Someone was there."

"Fine, I'll bite," Kiba huffed and threw his own gloved hands in the air. "How can you tell?" he wrinkled his nose and glanced at the floor panels. "There's nothing there!"

"I was trained for that," Neji said slowly and agitated the curtains, looking up.

"For what?"

The folds fell wrong, tilted to the side, as if they had been moved and rearranged. He moved them again to be certain, watching the velvet catch the light, wrinkling in yet another pattern.

"To see," Neji replied succinctly, his mind elsewhere.

They were wasting time here.

He felt a pang of irritation at Kiba and orders. Always orders and obedience, and yes sirs and yes ma'ams that made so very little sense now.

"Seriously, Hyuuga..."

His orders were to stay put and wait for Captain Senju, but he wanted to chase her. He gulped with difficulty, his heart bursting out of his chest, his lungs trapping trickles of air every time he thought about the possibility of her being hurt.

"The folds are wrong," he breathed out as a means of explanation.

He hadn't slept.

He had only waited.

"You make no sense," Kiba cried out, but Neji strode past him and exited the room. He cursed under his breath and followed him down the stairs. "OI! Where are you going?" he asked and grabbed Neji's shoulder to whirl him around. "We're supposed to wait for Captain Senju."

"Hn."

Unhurriedly, Neji pushed away his hand, his eyes, his mind, focused past him. He walked down the door and the background faded around him. He reached the entrance. The morning air was brisk, and there was still this pain in his chest. As if he had just woken up again for his last mission, and they were telling him to breathe.

Pain would fade.

Pain was just pain.

What did he miss? He had obsessed over it then. He obsessed over it now.

He had promised. Protection. Rules didn't stop him anymore.

Yet, good soldiers never made promises.

Neji breathed in sharply. He looked past the garden, hunting for more details, more signs and relief for this pain. This guilt. He squinted at the sky, rigid, the cool air unpleasant against his flushed skin.

Kiba jogged down the porch to catch up with him.

"Neji, man! Could you stop doing that?" he shouted, annoyed, and he leaned back his heels, his head toward the sky too.

Neji blinked and turned back toward him, his hands patting his pockets for his car keys.

"Doing what?" he asked without conviction.

"You don't act like my partner. You act like sometimes you need stuff from me, and the rest of the time..." Kiba gestured toward the empty air, puffing white smoke. "I'm just part of the décor."

Neji frowned, staring back at him. He tried to focus.

"This is personal to me," he said calmly.

"Stay put," Kiba replied through gritted teeth. "We need to wait for the Captain."

Neji clenched his jaw, as they stared at each other, one begging, one miles away, distracted, seeing treads in patterns. Finally. Couldn't Kiba see he had been unhappy with the motion of his job until now? There had been nothing to see. Since he had been relieved of his duties, everything had appeared obvious to him, not thrilling, or demanding. Just calm and bureaucratic.

He hadn't felt this alive in months.

"I can't," Neji whispered gently. "I'm sorry."

He unlocked his car.

" _Putain_ _..._ " Neji heard Kiba swear just as he climbed in the car.

He buckled his seat belt and started the engine, his eyes briefly shifting across Kiba's reflection in the rearview mirror.

Kiba waved him off, his back now to him as he marched back toward the safe house.

Neji breathed out, watching him disappear between faceless agents and crime technicians.

Without any more hesitation, he headed toward the airport. Then, he would fly to Paris, where everything had started.

Where all the threads were heading, connecting in a tangled mess.

He turned the car on the corner of the street.

 _Finally_.

He could see.

Finally, he felt alive.

* * *

 **Tenten Wang  
** _Stuttgart, Germany_

The high-speed train smoothly sank in the darkness, leaving Stuttgart behind. A controller spoke in German, then in French in the speakers to greet the passengers and wished them a pleasant journey.

Tenten looked outside, her head inclined toward the window, her fingers frozen over the keyboard of her laptop.

If she pressed that key, if she clicked, there would no turning back now.

She searched the darkness, seeking a reason to run away again.

The screen of her computer illuminated her profile, fading, but she sharply moved the mouse a bit, just enough to prevent her computer from locking.

Everything had started in the train, Tenten decided, her mouse hovering once more the confirmation button on screen.

She ground her teeth, her pulse accelerating, her palms icy and itching.

It started after she was admitted to  _École_ _Polytechnique_ , after she left home for the first time. It started in crowded RER wagons, toward the campus in the outskirts of Paris. It started at full speed on a career path both her parents were reluctant to address.

" _Look where I am, Tennie?_ _" her mother had sniffed, briefly glancing at the letter of admission._ _"_ _At the head of Wang Technologies. This will be you. Formal education is a waste of time,_ _" she had added and munched another piece of her steak._ _"I'll show you engineering better than those pompous cadets._ "

Tenten closed her eyes briefly, her finger curling back. Her hand fell back on the table. Why did she mostly remember all the instances where she failed them? Failed her family name, their expectations, her cultural roots?

_"You're only saying that because you couldn't get in," she heard herself replied in a dry mocking tone and ripped the letter out of her mother's hands, stung, hurt._

_"In my days, it was hard for women to get in," her mother had snapped and roughly cut her meat. "And a Chinese girl..." She snorted, shaking her head._

_"_ _I though you would be proud_ _," Tenten s_ _tated_ _flatly_ _and abruptly took back the letter of acceptance_ _._

_"I'll be proud when you take your responsibilities to this family more seriously," her mother said in a clipped tone and pressed the napkin to her lips._

Her heart squeezed painfully.

 _École_ _Polytechnique_  was a prestigious military engineer school, but even that had not been enough.

'Is this where we went wrong?' she asked quietly, thinking of her father chasing her out of Paris, then across Europe for drones.

Tenten had felt alienated all her life in the Wang family home, in the hallways of her family's company, in the sharp hopes and brisk demands of her parents.

She smiled sardonically. She was surprised she had been on Deidara's painting at all, part of the Wang family when she had come up short with almost everything. She hadn't visited the mansion in months before her mother died.

And now she was coming back home for herself.

Tenten clicked on the confirmation button, and numbers spun, decreasing rapidly.

She leaned her forehead on the glass of the window, one hand on the top of her laptop. Her bracelets clicked.

She thought of the train in Italy and Neji, and fast tracks and abrupt stops.

The number still decreased.

Tenten touched her bracelets.

'No more hiding,' she vowed ferociously, despite the terror prowling in the corner of mind.

She closed her laptop, drained.

Her bank accounts were reduced to almost nothing, but she now owned her company.

Like a Wang.

* * *

 **Neji Hyuuga  
** _Vienna, Austria_

In the hall of Vienna International Airport, a mechanical voice announced the next departures in German, then in English.

Neji pushed through a hurrying and distracted crowded. His eyes shifted across faces, searching for blond hair and a swift gait.

His heart thudded, his palms moist, but calm had settled in.

For the first time since his leave from the military, his mind was sharp and focused.  _He could do this_. He could, once more, see patterns and understand people. And understand  _him_ , and his scars from a bullet he hadn't seen.

He reached the ticket booth for Air France, just as his cellphone buzzed against his chest. He took it out of his inner pocket and glanced at Kiba's caller ID. He pinched his lips, holding the phone, praying just this once, he could be a good soldier again. Not a broken man with half a chest and destroyed heart muscles.

He hesitated.

One man brushed by him, and the queue moved forward.

Neji picked up.

"I'll deal with Captain later," he said stiffly.

'Just let me have this one,' Neji begged inwardly.

"This isn't what this is about," Kiba answered curtly.

Neji shifted the phone to his other ear, taking out of his wallet from his pocket.

"What is it?"

"Your Frenchwoman's name popped up in four different locations."

Neji frowned and looked up at the board announcing the upcoming departures, cities blinking in and out. His heart grew louder, his skin prickling with icy chills. He stared at the flight departing to Paris in less than two hours until the rest of the airport faded around him.

Had he been wrong?

"What?" Neji heard himself ask.

"There are four tickets booked under her name across four different cities... but all heading toward Paris."

Neji closed his eyes, his brows furrowed.

"There are four different train stations in Paris with trains coming from outside of France."

"Yeah, imagine that," Kiba snapped dryly. "She's smart and cunning, almost like she planned this. I'm sending you the info."

"Wait!" Neji choked out the word.

"You need something else?" Kiba shot back, and Neji winced.

He wished he remembered how to be loyal.

"You're my partner," Neji said quickly. "I know, you are, it's just..." He licked his dry lips, his palms beating the wheel in the rhythm of his heartbeat: slow and steady.

'It's just I went to war, and now I'm at war with whom I used to be.'

'It's just I never worked in a team before. I obeyed and obeyed.'

'It's just I wish I could go back. I've been so bored...'

"I apologize."

He pinched the bridge of his nose, one hand gripping his shirt and coat over the hole in his chest. His head was full of the wrong words, the right words he could never say, and his heart that beat and beat. He was alive, but a part of him was dead, and he grieved that dead mass of nerves and muscles, every day. Every time he was called Agent Hyuuga instead of Major Hyuuga.

His heart squeezed.

He needed to stay calm.

He needed to focus on something else than bombs and gunmen and death.

A second chance. This was his second chance.

"Fuck off, Neji," Kiba sighed dramatically, but his voice was lighter, closer to his usual broad intonation. "We'll just say you owe me big time."

Neji smiled thinly.

"Beer?"

"We drink wine in this country," Kiba huffed, scandalized.

Neji smirked and hung up.

He approached the ticket booth, trusting his guts.

"One ticket to Paris, please."

* * *

 **Tenten Wang  
** _Paris, France_

The next morning, Tenten arrived in Paris and she pushed open the doors of the conference room of Wang Technologies. Without pausing, she entered the room, and took the clipped sheets of paper outlining the agenda of today's meeting.

Stunned silence fell, crushing, as papers still rustled, frozen midair, unturned pages held between two fingers.

She made noise, clicking heels, clicking bracelets, all of her taut. She wished she could fill the room, the way her mother had with her eccentricities and loud voice.

She would have to do.

She ground her teeth, refusing to look at her father at the end of the table.

She straightened her back, relaxing her hands so they wouldn't curl into fists.

The projectors drew her skin bluish, momentarily blinding her, as she stepped in front of it, her silhouette now on screen. She turned on her own end of the table, her father, livid, across her from her.

"Gentlemen and ladies, knock knock, I guess," Tenten smiled and sat down.

Her father removed his glasses, his mouth round and stiffened by anger.

"What are you-?" he shouted, but Tenten waved him off.

"Well I'm the biggest shareholder now, so I'm going to sit on this little meeting."

Mr Wang flinched, eyes widening, and snapped his fingers at his executive assistant. The young man quickly pressed a few keys on the computer open in front of him. Tenten let him search, the other men glancing between them with curiosity.

She faintly spun the chair, her head tilted back toward the ceiling, her insides cold.

"It's true, sir," the young man spoke softly.

"And I'm going to take your place as CEO," Tenten added as if musing out loud.

Everything she had needed to know was in his brief silence, angry mouth. His face grew blotchy and red, and he stood up, his upper body shaking.

"What the hell are you talking about?" he shouted.

"I'm taking back what's mine," Tenten reached down, fumbling in her purse, and threw a thick document on the table. It slapped the wood. It spun, gutted, loose sheets of paper drifting across the table and on the floor. "Just like it says in the bylaws. Maman was always pestering me about reading them, so I did," she clicked her tongue, and quoted: "A shareholder who owns more than 25% of the actions can call for a vote," she quoted, and her smile was stiff. "Good thing, I own 27%, yes?"

"Have you any idea what you've done?" her father sputtered, his hands twitching. He turned toward the rest of the room, but the other directors didn't know how to react, discussing quietly among themselves. "The market will plummet now, you foolish girl!"

Some of the directors nodded stiffly, others frowned and reviewed the numbers in front of them.

"Why don't you sit down, papa?" Tenten whined, tapping a finger on the table. "This is serious business, even if you own something like what? 5%?"

"Tenten!" he yelled.

"Should I call security if you're being rowdy?" Tenten asked, and looked up at him.

She still didn't sound like her mother, firm and imperious. She savagely wished she did. She wished she wasn't fighting her father. She wished he was an anonymous villain, a ridiculous caricature of a mafia thug. A man shrouded in darkness and cloaked in evilness like in the movies.

Everyone but _him_.

But they stared at each other with the same eyes of steel.

' _I call you papa. I love you. Don't you? DON'T YOU?_ '

"We need to talk, daughter of mine," he said wryly.

His breath hitched, waiting for her reaction, his face still contorted. He urned half-way toward her, his hand pointed at the door. Even if she recognized the posture, his lean body that straightened to a new height when he was angry, even if she loved him, in that moment, she wasn't his daughter or her mother's daughter.

In that moment, she was more ice than pain, more endless equations and engineer blueprints than herself.

"No, we don't," Tenten said, and her lips curled up in a cold snarl. "We need to vote."

' _Isn't this what you wanted? This face-to-face? You chased me away, but then you wanted me back for these stupid drones. Well, here I am._ '

"Sit down." Tenten pointed toward his chair. Her glance swept across her bracelets. Her hand didn't shake.

_'Here I am with the drones, papa.'_

* * *

**Neji Hyuuga  
** _Paris, France_

Paris was stiff, ashen buildings that endlessly reached up and obscured the sky. So unlike the cities where she had chosen to hide during the summer.

Neji faced the clock of the Lyon train station, at the junction of the street leading to the other train station. The train from Lyon was due to arrive in any minute now. His gaze shifted to the undercover other officers slowly walking around or sitting at the cafés around the station.

" _Why_ _Lyon_ _?_ " Kiba asked in his earpiece, his mouth full.

"She likes that sort of cities. Orange roofs and sunny places," Neji answered and crossed the streets, jogging alongside the other pedestrians.

A car honked, someone cursed, and Neji cursed under his breath, when he needed to wait at the next junction in the middle of the street for the second light to turn green.

"No offence, but you're getting weirder and weirder," plastic wrapping screeched and Neji flinched, one hand going to his earpiece.

"And you're getting loud and disgusting," he hissed. "Do you ever not eat?"

"But man," Kiba said his mouth full, ignoring him. "Do you think it's a bit too ironic that she would pick Lyon. I mean, Interpol is located there."

"Hn," Neji frowned and finally crossed the remaining section of the street. He hurried, his eyes on the clock of the train station. "I think it's precisely why she would pick Lyon."

"Makes no sense, but whatever."

"Tell me when," Neji said abruptly, but he was already jogging.

He entered the train station. He stopped under the screens, his eyes quickly scanning for the train arriving from Lyon.

"It just boarded platform E," Kiba said.

"Which section?"

"Second class."

Neji frowned.

"No reserved seat?"

"I would have said so! God! Stop talking and run!"

Neji ran faster, pushing through the shoppers, then the other travellers as he hurried toward platform E. His heart pounded, and he searched through the crowd for a blond woman.

She was a flash in his vision.

"There!"

His hand shot up and gripped her, whirled her around. The moment he touched her, he knew she wasn't Tenten.

The woman gasped.

Neji froze.

Icy blue eyes met his.

"Let go of me!" the woman cried out in French, trying to pull her elbow out of his grasp.

Neji breathed out, tempted to let go, but he couldn't.

Her reaction was perfectly staged, her skin wrinkled around her eyes and mouth, but the curve of her neck was wrong, her shoulders tensed up, her free arm falling behind her instead of in front of her in a protective gesture.

And the hair. The hair was exactly as Tenten had cut and dyed it.

Neji smirked coolly, his grip tightening around the woman's arm.

"I don't think so. You're coming with me."

He yanked her toward him, so she would follow him. Her face shifted quickly, outrage peeling off. Neji blinked and the woman smiled and shrugged, her expression unreadable.

The face of a killer.

Instinctively, his other hand fell on his gun.

"She did say you were good, Mr Hyuuga," the blond woman said in English with a faint Eastern accent. She inclined her head toward his gun and sighed. "There's no need for that. I'll follow you. God, Americans, I swear..."

* * *

 **Tenten Wang  
** _Paris, France_

' _It's so easy to see what makes you tick, chérie. You are like a machine that was never closed. All your parts are exposed,_ ' her mother had once told her and laughed.

Her father hadn't seen her coming this time.

He hadn't thought he could lose it all to  _her_.

Tenten faced the city, 15 stories up, like a conqueror who had lost everything, who now looked down at a deserted, smouldering battlefield.

She closed her eyes, the rest of her immobile, unmovable.

Tenten had hoped it would have felt like victory. It  _should_  have felt like victory, she thought standing in her father's office. In what used to be her mother's office.

She should have faced him months ago, at the first suspicion.

She should have stayed instead of run.

 _Should_. _Should_. Her thoughts bled on each other, darkening, convoluted.

Maybe she felt nothing, maybe she couldn't move, because he would come back with a vengeance.

It wasn't over.

There was no hope of a happy ending.

Her palms were cool against the window, she drew a white cloud that disturbed her reflection.

"Madame, here are the ledgers and the schedule for today," a meek voice said from behind her.

"Thank you," Tenten muttered without turning around.

"Is there anything else you need, Madame?"

Tenten breathed in, blinking slowly. If it wasn't over, she would still need to fight. Her eyes darted to the wall, skipping over the assistant patiently waiting with a hesitant smile. His long brown hair was pulled back in a low spiky ponytail. His features were regular, but he looked terribly young.

He drummed his fingers on his thigh, jerkily.

"Yes..." Tenten trailed off.

She glanced at the wall.

'Did you see this? Me in your office, maman?' she wondered silently.

"I want you to suspend my sword and my diploma on the wall."

"A sword?" he widened his eyes, his face briefly turning red.

"The sword I was given at  _École_ _Polytechnique_. It's terribly Napoleon of them, isn't it? The sword, the hat..." again, she trailed off, pausing, because it mattered to her and no one had ever acknowledged it.

"Oh yes, of course!"

His shoulders sank in relief, and he nodded quickly, scribbling over his notepad. He pranced about, munching the tip of his already ravaged pen.

He caught her looking at his pen. He immediately pulled it out of his mouth, resuming instead his drumming on his thigh.

"Where from, Madame?" he asked, his face flushed.

Tenten leaned over her desk and reached for a pen and a post-it. She wrote the address carefully.

"An address on Champs-Élysées," Tenten said blankly, seemingly distracted, and she held up the piece of paper to him. "Here."

"I'll send someone."

He reached for the post-it. She held on. He gulped, blinking rapidly at her.

"What's your name?" Tenten asked softly.

He nodded quickly again, more at ease now that he was moving again, and smiled timidly at her.

"Morino Idate, Madame."

She let go of the post-it.

"Alright then, thank you, Idate."

She smiled like she wasn't going to war.

Like she hadn't moved the last piece on the chess board, a trap for her father.

Tenten touched her bracelet in silent prayer.

The last round would be all or nothing, winner takes all.

Drones and company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is going to be released on Friday. It's almost done. ;)
> 
> A cultural note on l'École Polytechnique: It is without a doubt one of the most prestigious engineer school in France. It's affiliated with the Ministry of Defence because, so students are cadets. They have a uniform and a sword, a tradition that comes from the Napoleon era (Their uniform is VERY Napoleon era like as Napoleon was the one who converted the school to this half-military half-engineer school.) Long story short, with Tenten's passion for all weapons and her pragmatism, I thought this school was the best option to be her Alma mater. :P No regrets.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	6. Paris: Neji & Tenten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go, a tad late (flu season is upon us.. -_-')!
> 
> Enjoy, you guys! :D
> 
> T2 = apartment with two separate bedrooms (not counting the living room), so it's considered pretty spacious in Paris.

**Neji Hyuuga  
** _Paris, France_

Neji's lips twisted in displeasure. He hated temporary headquarters

The hallway was narrow, empty, half-lit, the sound of police officers filtered through the thin walls. He could taste bleach at the back of his throat, the hallway stinking of it.

"Hey!"

Neji slowed, cocking his head to the side.

"Do you know who that is?" Kiba said animatedly and struggled to unroll his sleeves, a piece of bread in his mouth.

He had flung his coat over his shoulder.

Neji raised an eyebrow at him and they walked together. Kiba tore at the bread, munching loudly, as he craned his neck toward the closed door where they kept the suspect. Neji glanced down at the folder, then back at Kiba.

"Yes... I've read the report, but I don't know why you have?" Neji said cautiously.

Kiba leaned, his dark eyes flashing with glee and repeatedly tapped the folder in Neji's hands.

"Because I've been chasing her for almost a decade!" he cried out and shoved the rest of the bread in his mouth.

Neji blinked at him.

"What for?" he asked reluctantly, uneasily.

He had never expected anyone else to take this case personally.

"Never had enough evidence, but this woman stole crown jewels from Monaco. I'm certain of it. That and she killed a lot of people. Like a lotttt."

Kiba often seemed half-beast, half-human, ready to devour everything and everyone. He never let go of leads and relentlessly worked every one of his cases until they were solved. And it scared Neji, this passion, this drive. Everything he had lost. Everything he was trying to get back.

The tightness in his chest was back. Neji paused in the hallway, the file still in his hands. The Mind Reader's real name was unknown, but it was said that she was responsible for theft and murders, alike, her picture always blurry, blond hair masking her face. Her affiliation like, everything else about her, was unknown; some said she worked for one the Mafia families in Sicily, others for the Russians, or even rare sources swore she worked for herself in a crammed office no one has ever succeeded in locating.

"Let me sit in," Kiba whined his mouth full as he wiped his hands on his pants.

Neji's lips quirked up.

"What about protocol?"

Kiba snorted and took the folder from him, rapidly leafing through it.

"You should show your peers some damn respect, man," he slapped the file on his chest, then walked ahead of him toward the interview room.

Neji shrugged and followed him.

"Just don't screw this up," he said when they reached the door.

"Right back at you," Kiba grinned.

They entered the interview room, and Kiba closed the door after them, watching the blonde woman with a sharp stare. He leaned back against the wall, while Neji pulled a chair and sat in front of her. He smoothed his tie, then reached across from him to start recording.

"Session 1 of case file TW10348. Agents Neji Hyuuga and Kiba Inuzuka interrogating Ino Yamanaka."

He leaned back on his chair, his fingers spinning his pen carefully.

"Hello, Miss Yamanaka, this is my colleague Agent Kiba Inuzuka. We would like to ask you a few questions about your association with Miss Tenten Wang."

Ino's stare remained on him, but she didn't react. Her pale skin and hair appeared bluish under the dull lighting. Kiba tilted his head to the side, scrutinizing her. She had delicate bones that made her look breakable, doll-like, but her eyes were savage, cutting blue that gave up nothing.

"Still not talking, I see," Neji smiled stiffly and turned one page in her file. He pushed a picture of her in Warsaw's airport. "I guess that means I'll do the talking." He slid more and more pictures toward her, all of them in grainy greyscale, showing her, shadowy and wearing nothing but black on different crime scenes.

Ino didn't look down at them.

"Or let me," Kiba said and pulled the other chair for him.

It grated loudly on the floor.

Neji winced. Kiba's profile was cut sharply, his eyes gleaming with focus.

"Your name is Yamanaka Ino," he started and heavily sat down, clicking his tongue as he turned the pictures back toward him. "You were born in a small village in Poland. At 18, you disappeared. You reappeared years later, and now, you're a killer. You're a small fish. I had to read that file to know who you are. Otherwise, you're just... one more girl smuggled out of Poland and trained by the Russians."

Ino's smile spread slowly, undisturbed. White teeth flashed, she looked almost childish.

"If I'm a small fish, can I have full immunity?" she asked.

"Depends, what you have," Neji answered while Kiba shrugged, with disdain.

"I can tell you how it all started..." Ino twirled her index up, "with the drones."

Neji looked over at Kiba, but he was still staring at Ino, his lips curled back in a snarl. He didn't add anything. He didn't move.

"Let's hear it," Neji said coolly.

Ino laughed quietly, her shoulders haltingly jerking up, as if she was forcing each movement. As if she knew exactly what was expected of her.

"I'm not stupid. Immunity first. I talk after."

"We'll see how that goes with our superiors," Neji replied and gestured for Kiba.

They both stood up.

"Bring me food, too," Ino called after them in a loud whiny voice. "I'm hungry. Maybe something like that bread you ate, Agent Inuzuka. I'm in the mood for a good baguette."

They stilled, then looked at each other.

She was the  _Mind Reader_.

Kiba slammed the door shut after them.

* * *

 **Neji Hyuuga  
** _Paris, France_

They had changed strategies.

They had changed places.

But the moment she signed the immunity papers, she had more control over them that Neji would have liked.

Kiba leaned back against the wall, still pale with anger.

Neji sat in front of Ino, his arms crossed over his chest.

"Eight months ago, a man approached me," Ino started with a deep sigh as if the tale bored her. "He offered me 100k to tail this heiress. He wanted to know what she did, where she went, whom she met with... Everything. He even had me bug her apartment," Ino paused to shrug, and she reached from the sandwich in front of her.

She slowly unwrapped it with long pale fingers, and Neji had the distinct feeling she was buying time. She played with the light, aligning her body, her expressions controlled. She played  _them_ , confounded cat and mouse.

"Then, what?" he icily prompted her.

Ino raised a shoulder and sighed dramatically, shifting in her seat. Neji could now barely tell how much of her was staged or real. He threw a side-glance at Kiba sitting next to him, but he was immobile, ashen and stoic.

"At first, I thought she was his wife or his mistress, and he was the jealous type." Again, Ino paused and shrugged. "He wouldn't be the first. The girl was smart though. She shook me off a couple of times. Then, she cornered me four months ago."

"This heiress... You were asked to tail was Tenten Wang?"

Ino smiled coolly and leaned over the recording device. Her blond hair followed the movement of her head, and Neji's stomach clenched. It was the same haircut as Tenten.

"Yes," Ino shouted, then she laughed quietly, settling back in her chair. "She offered me 200k to feed the man false information. She made me say ridiculous things about a dog she didn't have, a park she never went to... A lover she hadn't seen in forever."

"Why?"

Ino rolled her eyes.

"I don't know. All she told me is that the man had tried to follow her for over a year. She suspected it started when her mother died. She had lost all the incompetent idiots." she played with the sandwich, her eyes on it. "You see, Agent Hyuuga, I'm costly. I'm generally a last resolve. I guessed, she wanted to corner him." She spread her hands in front of her. "Good money is good money."

"Who's the man?" Kiba barked.

She smiled, looking up at him through her eyelashes.

"No idea. I've never asked. After all, my salary relies on discretion."

Neji laced his fingers together over the file, pretending to re-read a piece of information. Pretending it wasn't a puzzle with pieces crashing instead of tumbling into places. If only she had talked to him. Trusted him.

' _But you don't even trust yourself_ ,' a voice whispered in his mind.

Neji cleared his throat.

"Hn. What did he want then?"

"The engineer blueprints for the drones."

Instinctively, Kiba and Neji avoided looking at each other, barely reacting to the implication.

"Why would he think Miss Wang has them?"

Ino raised an eyebrow at him, her glance cutting. A taunt.

She tapped one finger on the table, her sandwich still ignored in front of her.

"Because Tenten's mother is the engineer who designed them. Didn't you know that, Agent Hyuuga?"

"So Tenten has them," Neji said stiffly, ignoring her tone, her smile spreading her lips.

"Tenten, huh?" Ino cocked her head to the side.

"Does she have them? Yes or no?" Kiba snapped and leaned over the table.

Ino turned her attention to him, her mouth curling up in a snarl.

"She says she doesn't, but I'm sure she does. The man thinks her mother left them to her somehow, but he could never find them. I couldn't either. I've listened to over 200 hours of recordings. No mention of blueprints, plans or anything related to drones. She has no close friends... The tapes recorded mostly silence."

She smiled toothily at Neji.

"She has no boyfriend either."

Neji glared at her.

"What about her father?"

Ino flattened her palms on the table, her head tilted to the side.

"I think he's dead," she replied blankly.

"We know he isn't," Neji said icily. "She told you to tell us all of this."

Ino shrugged.

"She pays well."

"You're terribly loyal to her. I could keep you here, forever, though."

Ino smiled as if she was about to scold a child.

"No, you couldn't. Time's up. You should watch the news."

"This doesn't change anything," Kiba snarled, and Neji held up a hand to calm him.

"Yes, it does. My lawyer is about to arrive and put an end to this," Ino sighed, but her glance cut through them, icy amusement lurking underneath her blank face. "And I have immunity, no?"

Neji stood up, reaching for the doorknob. He stared at her, then at Kiba, his body taut, the muscles of his neck corded.

"Come on, Inuzuka," he said quietly.

Kiba leaned in, his lips curling up.

"I'll get you."

"What?" Ino mocked a scoff and pushed back her hair over her shoulder in a flirtatious movement. "Is the big bad wolf hungry for small fish?"

Kiba stood up briskly, panting, and the chair fell back. Neji stiffened, his grip whitening around the doorknob. He opened his mouth, but Kiba brushed by him. He yanked the door open and left, his steps angry, loud, retreating menacingly.

"He's charming, isn't he?" Ino smiled brightly at Neji and finally took a bite of her sandwich.

* * *

 **Neji Hyuuga  
** _Paris, France_

The temporary office of Captain Tsunade Senju in Paris was painted beige, forgettable, in an unmarked building by the Seine River. It was hot and clammy, but Tsunade seemed unperturbed, her eyes focused on the TV suspended on the wall.

"What a mess," she muttered in French.

The TV5 news channel played in muted sounds, the news presenter's words rolling in a ribbon of English words underneath her.

Neji gulped silently.

Captain Tsunade Senju roughly grabbed the remote control and turned the TV off. She threw the remote back on the desk. She skirted it, sighing, before sitting back down on her chair.

"Did you understand that?  _Quel bordel_?"

"I think so, ma'am."

She leaned back in the chair, her lips pinched with displeasure.

"She took over Wang Technologies," she said slowly and her painted nails scrapped the desk.

Her light brown eyes found Neji's pale gaze, and she turned back toward him. She laced her fingers together in a gesture he had come to fear like all of his colleagues. Tsunade was predictable when she wasn't serious. When she didn't lace her fingers together, her chin propped up, her face hardened. When it was her assistant that reminded her of the work she still needed to do.

"Green light for everything you can think of, Hyuuga," Tsunade barked.

"Captain..." Neji blinked.

"This is such a mess.  _Un putain de bordel_!" she shouted, her face flushed with anger. "The President called today. Wang Technologies is a big company with lots of influence. If Tenten Wang has the drones like Yamanaka said... and she is now CEO... Do you think you can bring her in without causing a scandal?"

Neji nodded sharply.

"Yes, ma'am."

"You do everything you can, boy, but please spare me the headache."

Then, her serious act slipped and Tsunade reached for the drawer. She took out a bottle of sake and a small cup.

"For inspiration," she grinned, wolfish.

"Shouldn't you-"

She slammed her palms on the desk and it shuddered under her weight. The sake and the cup startled and clanked. Neji blanched.

"Get out of here, and get her!" Tsunade shouted and pointed at the door. "I gave you orders, didn't I?"

Neji pinched his twitching lips, saluted and left the office.

* * *

 **Tenten Wang  
** _Paris, France_

Tenten was certain her father didn't know about her mother's secret flat until she had written the address on the post-it for her assistant.

Now her fingers trembled over the light switch.

Her breath hitched, lodged painfully in her throat, her lungs crying out for air.

Tenten sensed the intruder before seeing him, and her terror was insidious, crawling, sharp, inside her. Numb, she let her purse fall from her shoulder as it normally would. She kicked off her shoes, resting her palm against the cool wall of the entrance.

The room was electrified, unmoving, but hostile.

_Hostile, like her take-over._

It was only fitting that her father would return fire for fire.

Her stomach churned, acid, angry.

Before Tenten could change her mind, she switched on the lights, pulling back her shoulders. Slowly, she whirled toward the living room her hands around her gun.

Her eyes widened, her mouth parted, parched.

She hadn't expected  _him_.

Neji's gaze was sharp as it travelled from her face to the gun, his features hardening as he took her in. Slowly, he shifted on her grey sofa. He exposed his palms, held them up, and the air still buzzed on her skin.

Her skin flushed, her heart pounding.

"So, you do have your own gun," he said quietly, and his lip was an unwavering hard line. "Charming."

Tenten lowered the gun, her jaw clenched. Her index pulled the safety back on.

This wasn't the endgame she had imagined, but she shouldn't be surprised; Neji had always been able to match her step, match her tone.

Tenten turned away from him and approached the kitchen island to set the gun there in slow precise movements. The back of her neck prickled.

"I suppose it must be disappointing to find out the princess doesn't need your help to get out of her tower," she said with a smirk and leaned back on the kitchen island.

The weight of his gaze almost crushed her.

"Hn."

She flashed him a grin, her palms moist and cold as her fingers curled around the edge of the counter. None of this felt right. She had refused to think about him.

He was the after-thought.

He wasn't meant to be part of her story.

"Aren't you a little too comfortable in my home? In fact, I thought Ino would have taught you better by now."

"No," he answered in a clipped voice.

She shrugged one shoulder and raised a brow at him.

He would not ruin her fighting chances.

"Do you want a drink? Or did you already do that before I came in?"

In a smooth motion, Neji stood up and closed the distance between them. Her smile froze. He haltered.

"Tenten..." Neji said, and she poignantly hated that honesty had never fitted between them. Yet, he still said her name. "I need to bring you in."

She tilted her head back, her chin trembling.

"Why?"

Neji looked at her as if he wanted to reach her, as if he could be closer. She tensed, his jaw twitched, and she knew, somehow, he had seen it; how much power he held over her.

"Give me the plans, Tenten," he said quietly.

She barred her teeth at him. He still said her name the same way like she was asking him about his military background and telling him about French. As if 48h hadn't lapsed by where she had run away, took over a company and put as many kilometres as she could between them.

"I don't have them," she said and shrugged.

"Don't insult my intelligence."

Her face carefully blank, Tenten tilted her head from side-to-side. She tapped a finger to her cheek as if deep in thought.

"If I do have them, but I'm not selling them... Why is Interpol involved? I'm not breaking any law."

"Because someone died," he said coldly and took a step toward her. "Because you could be next," he added in a grunt, and she couldn't breathe as he shook his head. "You should have trusted me."

One hand on his chest, she pushed him away.

"Why?"

She had always questioned everything, but now it felt ironic.  _Why, why, why?_

She already knew why. The painting. The train. The drones. The drones. The drones.

She gave him a sharp laugh and all the edges of her were wrong. There was a twist of to her mouth, more lines around her eyes, and all of it sat uneasily on his chest. He could burst. He could burst with how she viewed him, how she thought he viewed him.

"Why?" Tenten repeated sharply, because she couldn't think of another word. Her fingers curled into shaking fists.

He pinched his lips, his skin stiffening at the notion that she was here. Safe. But she didn't laugh like before.

He tore his gaze from her to stare at her gun instead.

He truly had been blind.

"See this," she vaguely gestured at her apartment. "I'm alone. I've always been alone. And you come into my life with your  _putain de_..." she paused mumbled something in French as she shook her head. "With your fucking handcuffs, and I should have trusted you? Why can't you trust that I'm doing the right thing?"

"Because you're a civilian!" Neji shouted, losing his cool. "Because you're not safe! What else is there to care about? You think this is a feud between your father and you, but it's also a feud against about every European crime lords!"

He panted, his eyes wild and hot on her.

"Neji..." she said his name even if she tried not.

He shouldn't be here.

He shouldn't grip her arms pulling her to him.

He shouldn't have his hand pressed against the back of her head or on the small of her back.

"God, I swear..." he muttered in her hair, and her body tensed against his. Her heart pounded and she felt his own heart racing. "God," he repeated, his chin on top of her head. He didn't move, didn't caress her. He merely held her.

Tenten didn't remember the last time she had been held.

She had never considered people could chase each other out of concern, nor that anyone could ever care enough to catch her.

"Neji..." she mumbled, her arms as heavy as lead by her sides.

"You could have left a note. You could have called..."

Briefly, she closed her eyes and breathed him in, then his mouth was on her ear, and he whispered a something she had dreaded. Something she had expected to do without him.

Her blood turned to ice, and she pushed him away reaching past herself for the gun.

It was gone.

A man she had never seen before held it up to her face.

She froze.

"Look at that," Mr Wang said and sat down on the sofa. She held up her breath, her hands, aware of the tension in Neji's body as he imitated her. His face was carefully blank.

He pulled back.

"Thank you for finding my daughter, Mr Hyuuga. I knew following you would come in handy. The things Interpol knows..." Mr Wang said and nodded at him. He looked out at the view, the obscured sky of Paris and the garden of Champs-Élysées piercing through it, bony branches and lush leaves.

"Great, remind me to give a raise to my assistant who didn't leak you this address," Tenten said sarcastically, her heart pounding, drowning everything else.

"Search the place," he barked in French to the other men accompanying him.

They prowled roughly through her things. Tenten winced when the piece of furniture screeched against the floor in the next room.

She glared at her father.

"You won't find anything here."

"How did you manage to buy a T2 on Champs-Élysées," her father turned his gaze toward her. Then he added in a crisp whisper: "Another one of your mother's secret inheritance, I suppose?"

Tenten steeled herself.

Something banged against the walls of her bedroom.

Her father laughed dryly, shaking his head in disappointment.

"You and your mother... you both ruined me."

"Is this really all about money?" Tenten bit out.

Mr Wang clicked his tongue at her.

"Money is power, my girl. Your mother she held on to it like a stupid dog. I was adopted into the Wang family to be her husband. My parents had three other sons. They gave me away like cattle. I was supposed to be king of an empire, but your mother wouldn't share."

"So you killed her?" Tenten breathed out and shuddered.

"Of course not!" he shouted, his face flushed with anger. "She made those stupid plans, and everyone wanted her drones. She refused to sell, so they put a bullet in her head. That was entirely on her, my girl."

Tenten pinched her lips, and she stepped toward him, brushing past Neji.

"If only you could have been satisfied with your millions, but no," Mr Wang spat and his head bobbed. "You had to put your nose everywhere. You had to listen to her through the grave. What about me, huh? Why didn't you listen to me? I'm your father!" he cried out the last part.

Tenten tensed. She refused to cry.

"We found them," one of the man said and came from the bedroom holding up blueprints.

Tenten turned her head toward the hallway. She could see through the ajar door, the drawers askew, piles of clothes and documents on the bed, the bed sheets torn off the mattress.

She felt detached.

"Good," her father's face lit up with satisfaction, then he turned toward Neji and her. "Your association with Interpol makes things rather difficult for me, Mr Hyuuga. It was a bargain I was willing to make, but now... What am I to do with the two of you," he pointed at them alternatively.

"You've got what you want, so leave now," Neji said, the first thing he had said since what he had whispered to her.

"It's not that simple, now is it?" Mr Wang snapped his fingers and one of his associates put a document in his stretched out hand. "You, young lady, took back my company."

"It was never yours to begin with!" Tenten snapped.

Neji held her back, a hand in the crook of her elbow.

"I'm not your mother's poster boy anymore!" Mr Wang cried out. "She's dead! You're going to sign this and leave it all to me."

A thick document spun toward her.

He took out a pen from the inner pocket of his suit jacket. It clicked on the granite surface of the kitchen island. The lights above them drew deep harsh shadows, the rest of his face, pale, gleaming with sweat.

She took a step back.

He grabbed her, iron.

Neji didn't move.

"Papa..." Tenten pleaded, shaking her head, but he forced her hand open and put a pen in her grip.

"Sign, or I put a bullet through him."

' _Trust me now_ ,' Neji had whispered in her ear.

She stopped struggling, glancing at him over her shoulder. One of the men was holding a gun to Neji's temple. He held her gaze.

 _Why, why, why?_  Always this word echoing through her mind. Her mother didn't ask 'why', she fixed things. Tenten questioned things. She had never made anything with her hands.

She breathed out. Ink smudged, on the marked line.

"Did you ever love us?" she asked dully.

"Love?" Mr Wang sneered. "This has nothing to do with love."

"Sir..." someone breathed out.

Then, there was a startled cry.

"Not now!" Mr Wang barked. "You sign..." he added through his teeth.

She traced the first curve of her name.

"There's something wrong with that paper..."

They spoke fast, the sounds and bodies shifted.

"What?" Mr Wang whirled around, his grip around Tenten loosening.

Through her hair, she could see paper smoking. A sharp sound tore her from her father's grip. She stumbled forward. Someone groaned behind her, a gun clicked and spun away on the floor. She stilled, her breath thinning, the rest of her numb.

Her father swore in French.

"Put it out, you fool!"

She blinked, her cheek felt sticky.

Neji's fingers circled Tenten's wrist, she looked up at him, startled, her lips torn. She tasted blood. He tackled her to the floor in the kitchen. Angry steps vibrated through her back pressed against the floor.

" _C'est quoi ce bordel?_ " She heard her father yelled.

"I understood that," Neji smirked, and she felt his quiet laugh, in her chest, pressed against him.

"What?" she choked out, winded.

" _Bordel_ ," he panted. "Close your eyes."

The paper buzzed, smoke leaking out more steadily. Then, there was a shock wave. Time froze. The windows cracked, then exploded, sucked in, gleaming fragments violently shivering.

Tenten closed her eyes, clinging ferociously to Neji.

The chaos was deafening.

* * *

 **Neji Hyuuga  
** _Paris, France_

Later, there was no peace.

There was more noise, more angry steps, flickering light, sharp cries, shrilling sirens.

Yellow tape surrounded the building and closed the street to the public. Neji slowly spun on himself, nauseous, his ears still buzzing. His skin was drawn in red and blue from the sirens.

He held his cellphone in his hand.

"Do you want to be fired, is that it?" Captain Senju shouted in the phone. "You stole a prototype from the development department and caused millions of euros in damage! On the Champs-Élysées of all places! I'll make your uncle beg for forgiveness!"

Neji looked up at the sky. He couldn't see any stars. He couldn't see any birds, but his skin buzzed with awareness. He felt alive.

He closed his eyes.

"How did this mess work out in your head."

Neji smirked.  _Bordel_.

"Ma'am, you said I had green light."

"AND I SAID TO SPARE ME THE HEADACHE! DO YOU KNOW WHO JUST CALLED ME?"

"An important figure?" He couldn't keep the icy sarcasm from his voice, but Captain Senju was too angry to notice.

"THE PRESIDENT, HYUUGA! HE LIVES ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE CHAMPS-ÉLYSÉES! YOU JUST CAUSED A NATIONAL SECURITY STATE OF EMERGENCY!"

"But Mr Wang can't get on a plane now."

Captain Senju swore in French.

"If they don't pick him up at the airport," she threatened with a cool voice, "I'm calling your uncle and posting you in Siberia, is that clear?"

She hung up brutally.

Neji put the phone back in his pocket.

"She has a lovely voice," Tenten said lightly.

He turned toward her. She sat with a blanket over her shoulders on the sidewalk, the cut on her cheek bandaged by the paramedics.

"Hn."

He avoided her gaze.

"This was my mother's flat."

He cleared his throat.

"It'll be fixed."

She laughed dryly, her eyes blinking away tears. Machines, she could fix, this, she didn't know if she had the strength to do it.

She looked at the end of the streets, a wall of police officers holding back curious and angry people alike.

She sighed and stood up to stand in front of him.

"So, this is it."

"I'm sorry," he said quickly, the muscle of his jaw twitching. "I didn't think the effect would be that strong and I couldn't think of anything else."

She smiled faintly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

He pinched his lips, his back growing rigid.

"The flat will get fixed, you don't need to worry about that."

Tenten turned back slowly, and a voice inside of her cried out, wounded and mortified. How could he do this?  _Tenten, I'm sorry you refused to come home... I had no choice. No choice._

Even now, she refused to believe that. There should have been a choice, a chance for them to be a family again.

"This isn't what I'm worried about."

Tenten looked down at her hands. Her fingers closed around her bracelet. It caught the light of sirens, the red gem sparkling, winking at her.

"Here," she ripped her bracelet off her wrist and held it up to him. Her hand trembled. All of her trembled. "Do whatever you want with them."

Neji blinked, reaching for the bracelet with hesitation. Her hand grazed his, icy cold. He searched her face, but she had already turned away from him.

"I don't understand," Neji said quietly.

"I put the blueprints in there. Just pressed on the red gems. The bracelet will open. I destroyed the plans after scanning them. It's the 21st century, I'm surprised you didn't expect a flash drive all along."

"Tenten..."

He weighed the bracelet in his hand, his fingers carefully curling around it.

"I trust you to do what it's right with them, because this is your job," she gave him a small smile. "Now, it's time I do my job. I'm now CEO."

"Tenten..."

Neji tried to stop her, but froze, uncomfortably glancing at his hand on her arm. Slowly, his fingers peeled off her, the texture of the blanket, her warmth imprinted on his finger tips.

"I can't do this," Tenten whispered even if he already knew. "Not now. You're about to arrest him, aren't you?"

He took a step back.

"I just meant to say thank you for trusting me."

She didn't feel alive like he did, and somehow it dampened everything around him. Everything was less bright, less loud. There was only her, and her blanket of sadness, and the way she struggled to keep her back straightened, her face closed.

Tenten smiled at him, sad, exhausted, and shivering in the blankets she held tighter around her.

"No, you didn't."

"No, I didn't," he conceded, nodding vaguely.

His stare softened, and he took a step toward her, his mouth opening and closing. He tried to express apologies and promises he shouldn't make, but she held up her hand and shook her head, her eyes brimming with tears.

He clenched his jaw and lowered his gaze to the bracelet in his hands.

"I'll leave you be, Miss Wang."

"Good night, Mr Hyuuga," she answered and turned back toward the Champs-Élysées gardens, her profile red from the firetruck's sirens.

Dread and loneliness assaulted him as he walked away from her to reunite with Kiba. His path was always paved with casualties, in and outside of war zones.

And there he was, still leaving shreds of his heart behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll try to finish the last chapter this month. heuheuehuehue :D (So, please don't kill me now).
> 
> Another cultural note on swearing: 'C'est quoi ce bordel?' which I translated to "What is it/What's this mess?" actually literally means: "What is this brothel?" The expression definitely means "What is this?" but again, sex workers are dragged in all the swearing/slang French from France has to offer. It amused me to no end to teach Neji a French lesson on the meaning of the word "bordel". Mainly because I'm easily amused, I guess. XD
> 
> A note on les Champs-Élysées: It's translated roughly as the "Elysian Fields", which is a reference to a paradise for dead heroes in Greek mythology. It's truly a beautiful historical place, but it's expensive as hell. After all, the house of the President (Élysée Palace) borders the gardens of the Champs-Élysées and on the actual street are many historical monuments like l'Arc de Triomphe (translated as Triumphal Arch of the Star. Another one of Napoleon legacy). I suggest to get the groove of the place to listen to Joe Dassin "Aux champs Élysées" or anything ever sung by Édith Piaf will do too... for reasons I can't fully explain... lol.


	7. Lyon & Paris: Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been a while because life was hellish.
> 
> This is the last chapter of this fic. Because I'm a wild, wild thing, there are no POVs for this chapter, just regular third person.
> 
> Enjoy, guys! :D

**6 months later  
** _Lyon_ _, France_

As usual, there was light under only one door in the deserted hallways of Interpol.

' _He's still here,_ _that punk_ ,' Captain Tsunade Senju thought and ground her teeth.

She walked quickly down toward the elevators, slowing only when she passed in front Neji's office. Tsunade turned to the right and her high heels pounded the floor faster. She bit down a curse. ' _Is he ever going to leave before nightfall?_ ' she asked herself, annoyed. Her jerky shadow parted the orange glow of the dimmed lights of the city.

Tsunade pressed the button to call the elevator, shifting uneasily.

She heard his office door open.

" _Putain_ ," she muttered through clenched teeth and repeatedly pressed the button.

"Ma'am," Neji said coldly from behind her.

Captain Senju let her purse fall from her shoulder, deflated, defeated. She pinched her lips, her nostrils flaring, as she turned back.

Neji inclined his head as if to salute her, his face placid, his tie still tight around his neck. Tsunade narrowed her eyes at him.

That punk was ruining her life. Again.

"I think I liked it better when you were avoiding work," Tsunade growled in English and glanced at her watch. "It's 8PM, Hyuuga. Go home. Dismissed!"

She straightened her shoulders and faced the elevators once more, her gaze on the illuminated floor number going up.

Neji cleared his throat.

"I finished-"

Without glancing at him, Tsunade held up her hand stopping him.

"Yes, yes, I know. Every single night is the same. You finish some case. Half of this division looks bad because of you, and I need to do actual paperwork," she said dryly.

Neji's expression didn't change, but she knew him well enough now to see he was trying not to smirk.

"Thank you," he said tonelessly, and Tsunade briefly closed her eyes, growling deep in her throat.

"Don't be coy, Neji. Now listen to me," she snapped. She held his gaze, slowly articulating: "Go home."

Unfazed, Neji straightened his back. Tsunade cursed under her breath and sighed.

"I can't ever get rid of you, is that it?" she grumbled. "Whether you do your job or not... You're there. God, I wish you were French and could actually enjoy life. The small pleasures of life... Do you even know what that means?" she said brutally and pointedly glanced at him. "My small pleasures are finishing at 8PM and having dinner with my husband. With wine." she narrowed her eyes at him. "Do I have to set you up myself, boy?"

Neji's jaw twitched.

"I was only wondering if you had another case for me."

Tsunade stiffly nodded toward the elevator's doors sliding open.

"Walk with me."

"Thank you, ma'am," Neji said quickly, relieved, and followed her in the elevator.

Glancing side-way at him, Tsunade could see the tension leaving his shoulders. She clicked her tongue. ' _This has gone on long enough._ ' She had seen before in her own life and in others'; chasing cases to run away from problems. She glanced at the symbol of Interpol behind her. An emblem of peace, justice and relentless action.

She sighed.

It didn't come without burden or loss.

"Be useful, now," smiling coldly, Tsunade inclined her head toward him. Neji blinked, then pressed the ground-level button for her.

She smiled, satisfied.

"I've a new assignment for you," she said evenly, her gaze focused on her reflection in the silver doors. "We need you to infiltrate an art gala in Paris. We will monitor the reveal of a new Degas. We think it's being used to launder money."

Neji's mouth curved with disgust as she expected. She pretended not to notice.

"Pass," he said after a moment of silence.

"You'll take the boring assignments I give you because you're a loose cannon!"

"Inuzuka likes-"

"Yes, but you hate these, and I'm still annoyed with you."

Neji raised an eyebrow at her and uneasily angled his body toward her.

"You said I was forgiven."

"Yes, but I'm a known liar and gambler," she smiled coyly, teeth and venom. "And I need you to work your charms with Miss Wang for tickets."

Neji flinched.

"No."

"It's an order," her voice hardened.

On ground level, Tsunade stepped out of the elevator leaving Neji behind.

Dan, her husband, was waiting for her by their car. He smiled at her, lifting his body off the hood of the car. Before she could take another step toward Dan, Neji stepped in front of her, his eyes widened in fear.

Tsunade's smile fell, her temper rising.

"I put her father in prison," he panted and held up his palms. "Surely there's another case, I can take."

"No, there isn't," she said gruffly. "Her father was charged with conspiracy to sell. He'll be out in no time. I still suggest you be extra charming to her though. Now, if you'd excuse me-"

Tsunade attempted to skirt around him, but he stepped in front of her again. She groaned.

"I destroyed her mother's flat," he added quietly.

Tsunade paused, searching his face. Instinctively, she reached to squeeze his arm.

"I can't," he whispered.

She steeled herself, letting go of him. No, justice didn't come without loss.

"Ah, there it is: an apologetic face," she said dryly and walked away from him, so he wouldn't know what it cost her to say each word. "It only took 6 months. Call her," she sniffed.

Tsunade walked away, and he didn't follow her.

Over her shoulder, she added: "And don't call me or email me until tomorrow morning. I'm spending the evening with my husband. Little pleasures of life... You should try that."

* * *

_Paris, France_

"What is it?" Tenten asked her assistant, distracted, and quickly glanced at her watch.

Her meeting with her team of engineers was two hours away.

"I think it's best you step away from your work, Madame."

Tenten smoothed the blue prints of an aircraft engine, chewing on her bottom lip. Her heart skipped a beat. She thought of her father and her hand released her pen, her fingers, rigid, when they curled back. Her nails dug in her palms.

"Just say it, Idate," Tenten ordered and looked up at his reflection in the wide windows.

Even since she took over her family's company, she was prepared for the worst. She was prepared for her office to be taken away, her father pacing in it, her father pacing in the living room of the family home, her father ringing the bell of her new apartment.

"Maybe you need to sit, Madame... Some water, maybe?" Idate's voice wobbled, his body swinging and shifting with his usual nervous energy.

Tenten slowly straightened her back, briefly closing her eyes before focusing back on her work. A partially complete tridimensional modelling of the engine hovered above a small table behind her. The projector above it wheezed softly.

The measurements were wrong.

It was her life that was wrong, stolen, never meant to be, a snicker added in her head.

"Stop hovering around the door like a lost satellite and just say what you've to say, Idate," Tenten snapped.

"Someone is here to see you..."

"Well?" she snapped, but her tongue was heavy lead, her mouth completely dry.

 _'It's him. It's him. It's him.'_ Panic, then anger, squeezed her insides. Her hand closed around her bracelets.

"I'm not sure you want to see him, Madame."

"Why wouldn't I?" she asked, absent-minded.

"It's the crazy cop who destroyed your mother's flat," Idate admitted in a single breath. His bouncing and fidgeting stopped altogether.

Tenten froze, then suddenly, she could breathe again. Blinking rapidly, she turned back toward Idate.

"What?"

He scurried to open his notebook and read his name quickly: "Neji Hyuuga. He's here to see you."

Tenten slowly turned back toward her blueprints. She couldn't think straight with the wheezing of the projector and the miscalculations, and the modelling was too static, too incomplete. Her heart raced. Her palms grew cold.

She never expected to see him again. She left the haunting, the psychological torture to her father.

She played with her bracelets, troubled and confused.

'Not now,' Tenten had said, the same way she would have said 'never'. And he walked away. And she never glanced back.

It had been six months. There was no turning back. No forgiving.

She exhaled sharply, her hands finding her hips.

"What should I do, Madame?" Idate squeaked out.

"Ask him business or pleasure," Tenten said finally with an ashen expression. She bent down and roughly disconnected the projector.

Idate cleared his throat, shifting from one foot to the other. Tenten's neck prickled as she turned back toward him, frowning.

"What is it now?" she asked blankly.

"He already said it's a mix of both."

Tenten walked toward the door to brush past him, but she hesitated, her hand reaching for the door knob, so she could stabilize herself. She quickly let go.

"Where is he?" she asked quietly.

"He's waiting in your office, Madame."

Tenten brushed past Idate, waving distractedly for him to follow her. As she walked, she gave him instructions about the afternoon meeting as if Neji was an after-thought. She slowed when she saw him in her office through the windows surrounding it.

He stood with his back to her, his hands in the pockets of his coat.

She gulped.

"Take an early lunch and get Ino."

Idate bowed his head stiffly and hurried away.

After her assistant was gone, Tenten straightened her hair and her suit. She composed herself and pushed open the door of her office.

Neji turned toward her, his body stiff, barely moving. His eyes flickered across her, and she pretended not to be bothered by the weight of his stare.

"Mister Hyuuga, what can I do for you?" she asked coldly and sat behind her desk.

She reached for her letter opener, twirling the blade in her hands. He watched her, uncomfortably, his lips pinched, his jaw twitching. He exhaled sharply, his gaze finally meeting hers.

"Miss Wang, I have-"

"No."

Neji closed his mouth. They stared at each other, as rigid, as expectant. Tenten looked away first.

She smiled emptily, her eyes on her sword hung on her wall, and gestured with the letter opener toward the chair in front of her office.

"Now, ask away."

Neji nodded his thanks and sat down in front of her.

"There's an art gala at Deidara's in Paris next week. You're invited," he added the last sentence quickly.

"Yes, I am, and?" Tenten raised an eyebrow at him while still playing with her letter opener.

Neji inclined his head, his mouth curling briefly in disgust. Tenten pinched her lips. He didn't come here on his own accord. He was placed here, in her office, with her, just as he had been months ago when he was playing the part of her bodyguard.

She was more angry than disappointed. More so at herself than at him. This was his job.

She dropped her letter opener and joined her hands instead, smiling coldly to encourage him to finish talking. She needed to act the part of a CEO if he was here to act as an Interpol agent.

His face relaxed, cool and distant.

"Interpol would be grateful if you could introduce us inside."

"Why would I do that? It doesn't sound like fun."

Tenten shrugged and glanced at her watch. Her mind rolled away from him, shifting toward the measurements of the new engine she was building. As it always did. Things broke, and she fixed them, or she carried on.

She carried on.

She carried on to the right pistons, crank-cases and cylinders for the aircraft engine she was revising.

"No, it isn't," Neji said smoothly.

Tenten quickly glanced up at him, surprised by his tone.

"I hate art related crimes," he admitted and grimaced. "They are boring. Little action."

Caught off guard, Tenten didn't react at first. Then, she laughed.

"What did I say?" Neji frowned.

Tenten waved his question off and spun the letter opener back toward her with her other hand. Her bracelets clicked and his gaze involuntarily glided up her arm, to her exposed neck, to her lit up face.

"Tell you what, Mr Hyuuga," she inhaled sharply, her laughter receding. Her grin turned wolfish. A shiver travelled down his spine. "You wear a nice tux, and I'll let you be my plus-one."

"Tenten..." Neji shook his head.

She shrugged carelessly, in reply, her eyes gleaming with amusement.

"You said a mixture of business and pleasure, is that not what you meant?"

' _Yes_ ,' his heart said, and his mind was silent for once. Carefully, he looked at her, his expression softening, then hardening again, shame and guilt, rising one after the other inside him.

"How are you?"

Tenten cocked her head to the side, slowly licking her lips, a part of her debating whether he was friend or foe. She barely knew the difference anymore.

Neji patiently waited for her answer, barely breathing. He was tired, his clothes slept in despite an effort to straighten out the crinkles. Last night, he had turned and turned in his bed, sleep evading him. On the train, he had read the same sentence of his book over and over again.

After a stretching silence, Tenten spun her chair to gesture toward the Paris' grey sky.

"Nice view, yes?"

Neji nodded politely.

"It's too dangerous for you to come along," he said roughly and linked his hands together.

"You mean more dangerous than a lunatic blowing up my flat?" Tenten smirked, her voice kept light.

Neji flinched.

"I'm not a lunatic."

"And I'm not negotiating, Hyuuga," Tenten interrupted, focusing on the winter sky. "If you wanted to negotiate, you should have booked the conference room. This is my office, and my word is law," she paused and pressed a hand to her chest. "Wow, I've always wanted to say that."

His lips quirked up.

"I'll check with my superior, but I don't think she'd agree. For obvious reasons."

"Tell her it may be her only way in."

"I doubt that."

Tenten stood up and skirted her desk to sit on its edge right in front of Neji. She crossed her arms over her chest, inspecting him with feigned coolness.

"Then tell her, a real tux and if you don't look good, you can wait outside."

Neji shifted in his seat and leaned forward. There was a new sharpness to her face, but she dressed with provocation; purple lipstick, with a matching tie and ample designer clothes. She looked dressed for war.

But she still clicked, her bracelets bouncing when she moved.

But she still boldly met his gaze.

"Tenten... This isn't a game," Neji said quietly, and he wondered if he could, if he should, touch her. They were too close.

"But I'm serious," Tenten leaned closer to him, levelling her face to his. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "I'll be wearing emerald silk, side slits, and I don't want you to destroy my image," she smiled and stood up again.

Neji's heart pounded against his temple, his palms growing cold and stiff.

"There are stereotypes about Americans not dressing up properly. Are those true?" Tenten continued with a disappointed sigh.

Involuntarily, Neji thought of the curve of her mouth when she was sarcastic or amused. He thought of her flat exploding. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

Tenten sat back behind her desk.

Neji couldn't be the bodyguard who protected her and weighed her heart in the same fist anymore. He would choose duty as he always did if she didn't choose him now. He had survived deeper, deadlier wounds.

"I've missed you," he said, even if he promised he wouldn't.

"Then, you should have called." Tenten reached forward and pressed the button of the intercom. " _Ino_ ," she said in French. " _Please e_ _scort Mr Hyuuga out, and make sure he's not planting anything._ " She smiled coldly at Neji and pressed the button again to add in English, so he would understand her: "You can make him eat whatever bug he wants to plant."

Neji held up his hands.

"No bugs."

"Ino will be the judge of that."

Tenten spun her chair, so she faced Paris' skyscrapers instead of him.

"I'll call you," Neji said before standing up.

She didn't turn back.

Ino held open the door for him with a ferocious expression.

Neji looked back one last time. Tenten played with her bracelets, but didn't turn back.

"This way, Mr Hyuuga," Ino said stiffly.

Her pale eyes followed him even if he made sure she could see his hands. Ino walked behind him. In the elevator, she also stood behind him, and it unnerved him.

"She's better, you know?" she said once they reached the lobby.

Neji didn't answer. He pushed through security, but Ino didn't move.

"She barely managed to save the company. It neared bankruptcy," she added as if daring him to move without addressing what happened six months ago.

"I saw," Neji admitted tightly and his body stopped.

Guilt stopped him from elaborating, sinuous and haunting.

And his thoughts stopped reeling.

His heart skipped a beat.

"In some ways, she knows you saved her, but she wished her father had done the saving."

"I know," Neji said again.

He didn't know what else to say, but Ino nodded to herself, satisfied. She flipped her hair over her shoulders, her movements almost feline, always calculated.

"I can see why she likes you though," Ino added with a smirk and shrugged one shoulder. "You're just two crazy bitches."

* * *

_Paris, France_

Two nights later, Neji quickly slid in the black car, shoulders still hunched from the rain. His coat was uncomfortable, heavier, glacial. He brushed his wet hair out of his eyes as he settled in his seat.

The car smelled like her, he couldn't help but think as he gazed toward her.

Tenten was staring outside the window, her profile blurred by shadows and fragments of uneven light. She wore a long creamed-coloured coat. In the darkness, Neji could only make out the bright red of her lips.

Silence stretched, crude and fragile, made of intakes of air that never became words.

He could tell she was as nervous as him. One of her hands clenched the door handle, the other, her pouch.

The car drove away smoothly, the sound of the rain dampened.

"I hate French winter," Neji whispered and ran a hand in his hair.

"Imagine, a few more months and I could've made you change a tyre under this rain with only one hair pin," she replied, and her hands released both door and pouch, so she could laugh as she always did, her hands close to her chest.

Neji laughed softly.

She grabbed his arm abruptly, and he braced himself, lips parted, watching her, unable to look away. Her eyes stood out in the darkness, yellow lights trailing fast across her face and neck as the car moved. She leaned her face close to his.

"What convinced your boss?" Tenten asked.

He opened his mouth, then closed it sharply, entranced by her shimmering earrings and neckline. Her hair was pulled to the side, instead of the rigid buns she usually wore.

She nudged him, a finger on his wrist.

He quickly glanced away.

"Actually," Neji cleared his throat, his neck reddening. "I met no resistance."

"Oh?"

He paused. Tenten nudged him again, her skin warmth running up his arm as a shiver.

"My boss thinks I'm less likely to cause a scene in front of you," Neji said distractedly and risked looking at her again.

"Why?" Tenten raised an eyebrow at him.

"Because I already did it once."

Tenten smiled and turned away from him, releasing his arm.

His fingers twitched, but he let her go.

He turned his body back toward the front of the car at the same time she turned back toward the window.

They lapsed into comfortable, warming silence, drowned by the uneven pattering of the rain.

* * *

_Paris, France_

Later, at the gala, she moved in her world with more grace and ease than he expected. She stood out, red lips, her emerald gown, unconventional, her voice booming, but she belonged. Neji was the one standing awkwardly next to her, his hand hovering the small of her back.

She leaned back against him and he froze. Without looking at him, she reached for a glass of champagne.

"Ease up a bit, Neji," Tenten said and winked, the rim of the glass near her lips. "You look like I dragged you here against your will."

"You know a lot of people," Neji said, shifting uncomfortably.

Tenten looked at him curiously, her smile small, barely curving her lips.

"I don't attend big gatherings often," he admitted.

Tenten patted his chest with her empty hand, laughing lightly.

"And everyone speaks French. Must be intimidating."

"Yes," he said uneasily and looked around the room for where the art was kept.

"I actually introduced you as the nephew of a rich Japanese investor. I expected you to understand this as much."

His jaw twitched and he quickly glanced at her. Tenten grinned, all of her sparkling and brightening.

"Oh, so you can a file on me, but I can't know anything about you?"

"I've a complicated back story with my uncle," Neji said stiffly.

"I see," Tenten said and drank from her glass. Again, his gaze searched the crowd.

"Back stage, second curtains to the left," she sighed.

He glanced at her in surprise.

"How did you-?"

"I mean art related crimes logically include the art." she inclined her head toward the curtain she had mentioned. "The art is there. I would have mentioned this earlier, but I was using you to repel the advances of at least twelve men."

Tenten took another sip from her glass.

"I need to disappear for a bit," Neji whispered in her ear. "I'll continue my job of guarding you against unwanted attention afterward."

Tenten turned toward him, amused. She pressed her pouch under her armpit and straightened his bow tie. Lightly, he caressed her wrists.

"I'll be back..." he breathed out.

"Whatever you do, don't make me lose my invitation for next year," Tenten whispered and her lips grazed his earlobe. "Deidara is a close family friend, and he's really scary when he's mad."

She smoothly walked away from him. Neji watched her briefly, before moving in the crowd. As he turned away from her, she waved to an acquaintance.

No one noticed him disappear.

The velvet red curtains formed a labyrinth where armed security personnel stood idly. Neji frowned. There was a lot less security than he expected, and they seemed unprepared for guarding a painting as valuable as a Degas. He advanced slowly, slipping on gloves. He brushed his handgun at his waist.

He stopped at a reasonable distance from the black boxes containing the art, half-hidden by a natural fold in the curtains.

The boxes were bigger than those typically used for storing paintings.

'It makes no sense,' he thought as employees carefully unwrapped the art. There were colours and odd shapes.

He grimaced.

His boss had played him.

There was no Degas, only abstract sculptures.

* * *

After the gala, Neji stood in her apartment in front of glass door leading to the balcony. As he watched the sky, he slowly untied his bow tie. Behind him, Tenten kicked off her high heels, groaning with pleasure as she massaged her feet.

"God," she moaned, and he gave her a small smile, pointing at the windows.

"You're a fan of nice views."

"I like the sky, yes. That's what my name means after all.  _Heaven_. I'm just being predictable," Tenten grinned and pointed at her liquor tray. "What's your poison?"

Neji glanced at the tray, his understanding of French too limited to make out the name of half the liquor bottles.

"Whatever you're having," he replied and smiled at her.

Tenten reached for two glasses and glanced at him.

"Gin tonic works?"

"Yes."

Humming to herself, she poured tonic water, ice and gin in two glasses. She handed him one glass.

"Cheers."

They clicked their glasses and drank. The alcohol instantly warmed his chest. Tenten sat down on the sofa and patted the seat next to her. He sat down, both relaxed and tired. He sighed contentedly as he drank again from his glass.

"Did it go well?" Tenten asked curiously and curled up, carefully rearranging her skirts over her legs.

"If it wouldn't have, the police would have been there. I'm starting to think..."

' _It was a set-up_ ,' Neji finished inwardly, but he didn't want to admit he had moped enough for his boss to notice and send him on this wild goose chase. He exhaled deeply.

"What?" Tenten prompted him.

"Nothing. I'm just glad, it ended the way it did."

Tenten hummed and leaned toward him. Easily, Neji slipped his arms around her, holding her to his chest. He pressed his cheek to her hair, his eyes drifting closed. She moved her arms over his chest, both light and firm.

Neji pulled away from her, frowning, all of him tightening and growing cold.

"You're looking for a listening device."

Tenten threw herself back her pillows, pinching the bridge of her nose. He felt the loss of her in his bones. He blinked. He wanted to stand up and leave, but she put her legs over his knees. Her gown shifted, and he tried to cover her exposed legs out of habit.

"Do you blame me?" Tenten said softly. "Why are you here, Neji?"

"I can't tell you why I went to that gala," he replied stiffly.

His hands trembled over her calves. He didn't know if he could touch her.

"I mean, here, in my flat. Your mission is over. You can leave."

Neji frowned and turned his head toward her, seeking her gaze. She stared at the ceiling, one arm over her forehead.

"I don't want to leave," he said quietly.

"I swear to God, if you're undercover..." Tenten smiled humourlessly, the unfinished sentence tangling between them.

"I'm not," Neji said quickly and put his hands over her calves.

"Can I trust you?"

He smiled at her, his eyes softening.

"There are things I can't tell you about me or what I do, but I would never do anything to hurt you. I'm not a spy, Tenten."

"Okay," she nodded and reached over to squeeze his hand.

Neji brought their joined hands to his lips. Then, he untangled himself from her. She sprung up, tensed, watching him intently.

"What are you doing?" she squeaked out.

Neji brushed a strand of hair out of her face and stood up.

"I'll go home now. I'll call you tomorrow, properly ask you out, and take you to a nice restaurant."

She gaped at him, then sat up, a small smile tugging at her lips. Her whole body relaxed as laughter shook her chest.

"Not a  _brasserie_ , a restaurant," Tenten articulated slowly with a smile.

He kissed her forehead. He hesitated, his gaze drawn to her lips. He could feel her breath hitched in her throat. He pecked her on her lips. Her fingers were cool against his cheek, and he couldn't look away from her red parted lips.

"I should go home," he said huskily and released her.

She pressed her lips together, clearing her throat.

"Yes, I bet you need to look up what's the difference between a restaurant and a  _brasserie_ ," Tenten smirked at him.

Neji's lips quirked up as he put his coat back on.

"Interpol is a French organization. I've picked up some things."

"Except the language."

He grimaced, and she grinned.

"I'm working on it, but it's still embarrassing," he reluctantly admitted.

Tenten sighed and stood up. She straightened his collar. They paused, staring at each other.

"I presume you know your colours, numbers..." Tenten said quietly.

"Yes."

"And?" she tilted her chin up, her eyes glinting with amusement. "How about charming me the French-way?" she laughed. "You're blushing."

"I've never been good with emotions and speaking my mind."

"I guess that'll come too."

"Before meeting you, I was bored and lonely and angry," he said slowly. "I told you, I followed the rules well. I almost died because of it. I guess... I didn't care enough anymore."

"Do you care now?" Tenten asked.

They didn't touch, but they stood close.

"You touched me... in unconventional ways."

"That was very French, indeed," Tenten laughed, and patted his chest. "Now, tell me how."

Neji laughed quietly, and grabbed her hand. He lightly squeezed and pressed their intertwined hands on his chest. She held her breath, watching their hands, then searching his face.

"Deeply," Neji whispered, gutted knowing she felt the gash in his chest, a wound that would never heal. "I could only let you go if you asked to."

She stepped closer so him, tilting her head sideways. She grazed her lips against his. He moved toward her, watching her carefully. His heart exploded against her.

"Don't let me go." she said against his lips, pressing herself closer to him. He slid his other hand up her neck, to hold her cheek. She avoided his lips. "Except for tonight," she said quietly.

Nodding, Neji caressed her cheek, drawing one last circle, before reluctantly taking a step back. Tenten let go of his hand, watching him with a soft smile. He briefly wondered if he should tell her, he understood her hesitation, or that he noticed the sharp lines around her eyes – fear and worry, he saw it all.

He felt it too.

Instead, Neji grabbed his coat and bowed his head slightly, from the hallway. She sat back on the sofa, her legs tucked under her, her face partially illuminated by the lamp by the sofa. Her dress glowed, the hem and skirts folded under her. She leaned back, one arm over the sofa as she played with her earring.

He cleared his throat, finally glancing away from her.

"Good night, Tenten."

" _Good night, Neji_ ," she replied softly in French, and he could hear the smile in her voice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last cultural note on restaurants vs brasseries, because it fascinates me: In France, there's a fundamental difference between brasseries and restaurants. "Brasserie" is textually translated as "brewery" except, it's not a brewery (some exceptions exist in Alsace, but it's definitely not the norm). These brasseries do not brew their own beer, instead they are known to offer continuous service which is why they are regarded as second-class "restaurants". Restaurants, on the other hand, close between lunch and supper (or are only open for supper), and have tablecloth. For these reasons, they are considered fancier and better in terms of food than brasseries. Which is why French!Tenten made that comment. :P
> 
> Thank you for your support, guys! Hope to see you around for future projects! :D
> 
> As always, feeding is greatly appreciated!

**Author's Note:**

> Reviews are love. Thanks for your support! :D
> 
> Next chapter is in Tenten's POV.


End file.
